So you wait all your life for somebody to come along: someone with those eyes, those lips and the personality to match. Obvously, on the way to this reunion you've made plenty of stupid mistakes, settled and resettled on numerous occassions so that just as you're gripped in that singularly most momentous passionate embrace you can't breathe for the sheer joy that you are experiencing.
What's meant to happen after that is clear... evidently he (or she) wants you too, the last twenty minutes have proven that if nothing else, but then nothing is ever that easy is it?
A month ago I wrote in my journal "Last night I fell in love with Joe all over again". I hadn't seen him for weeks. Months. No, that's an exaggeration, but it felt like a long time, and suddenly everything seemed to be falling back on track. Then that night happened. That wonderful night where for a single spectacular moment I thought that everything was indeed going to work out. Then... I was altogether too drunk to remember just how it happened, but the only words that I recall are "I don't think that this is a good idea". I remember his eyes as he said it. I remember wondering what would happen if I kissed him again, if he'd be able to deny that it was the best idea anyone had come up with in a long time.
People need you to just do things like that sometimes. Just like that, without any warning.
Then he went away again, vanished from our social circle like those last three weeks had never happened. Went off on holiday with some other people while I was left to wake up the next morning and cry at my own misery and then stumble from one foolish mistake to another in an attempt to seek comfort. It's easy to use people. In all honesty, I think that sometimes people want to be used. To feel as though they're doing something a bit trashy, a bit dangerous. At my exhibition he told a friend of mine that we were having casual sex. It's not true. I wish it were. I wonder if he realises how easily he could have me. That's awful, isn't it? I mean, considering the state of things now, it's really quite apalling that I would give anything to wrap my arms around him again. He's the best kisser that I have yet come across.
The next day I woke up and cried until I fell asleep again, then I went out to my colleges' Leavers' Ball and picked up some guy. A distant friend I never see much of. I would have slept with him, I nearly did. Then I started what has now become a relationship with one of my closer friends... I tried to end it when I saw myself wavering, returning to my old ways, it was the best thing to do, but he fought for me, he texted me and cornered me at every opportunity until I gave in. No one has ever wanted me that much. Now one has ever wanted me much at all, I'm the one night girl. The one you'll kiss and pull to you because you're drunk. When it all began we would fall asleep in each other's arms, and wake up together, and one night I slept at a friend's house and actually missed the sensation of being held, couldn't sleep for ages... But I'm a bad person. I would turn away from the one good thing that's happened to me in a long time if desire bade me to do so. His kisses are polite, comfortable. He lacks the passion that I crave and even though I don't want to, I hesitate to emphasise our couple status when in public, I shirk away from kissing him, I look for other opportunities and search Joe's eyes for the slightest hint of a chance.
He's back now, of course. Briefly. Not briefly enough for me not to feel the need to contact him, to see if there might be something there after all. Sometimes I think there is.
Know there is.
But never anything definate. How can it be that you can look for something all your life only to find it elsewhere, in a different form. Is it always like this? Surely we can't simply be expected to settle for tenderness and loyalty when what we crave is passion and desire. In the long run, the first is a wiser choice, but I'm not in the long run, I'm here, in this moment, and although I'm no longer alone, I sometimes wonder what would happen if I were.