I don't write too many love stories, but here's one that got published a few years back...
I fell in love with Amanda Reece on the first day of secondary school. I was twelve. Do not misunderstand this declaration of Love, this was not some haphazard decision arrived upon while queing for sweets, some awkard teenage crush; this was It.
I fell in love with Amanda Reece on the first day of secondary school. I was twelve. Do not misunderstand this declaration of Love, this was not some haphazard decision arrived upon while queing for sweets, some awkard teenage crush; this was It.
It was in Art I believe, second period. I sat, listening to the register, attempting to put names to so many new faces...Julie Lemon, Martin Locke, Andrew Parker and then...Amanda Reece.
Teacher stopped. No reply.
Suzanne Dixon stepped in.
"She's not coming to this school sir. She's moved."
"Oh. Right. Thanks." said teacher, and scratched her away forever with his biro.
As soon as I heard her name I knew, I knew this was the girl I was going to be with.
Her not even being at my school simply made her all the more attractive, she maintained a mystique and allure that most of the other girls very quickly lost. She alone remained aloof, distant, unattainable.
So unattainable in fact, that she wasn't even there.
Erased from our register, she quickly faded from the minds of my classmates, but her name was already burned across my heart. And I knew, as you do, that we would be together. Eventually. I could wait.
And while I waited, I passed the time with a very short list of girlfriends. An average of just under one partner per year. We'd be ecstatically happy for a period of no less than two weeks and no more than three months. The time difference between each of my secondary school girlfriends ensured that every time I returned to the dating game, the definition of what was considered acceptable behaviour had always changed. Thus I progressed across the sexual arena in a series of well timed skirmishes, always surprised to find that so much ground had been gained in previous campaigns. To me therefore, sex seemed to occur more quickly than it actually did. Like time lapse pornography. Hand holding to bashful embraces. Bashful embraces to french kissing. French kissing to ineffectual groping. Groping to more prolonged fumbling. And then on to capture the flag. My lack of any physical prowess seemed to ensure that I was never the first team to capture the flag, but I was always just grateful for being given the chance to compete.
I left school and began the lengthy process of avoiding going to university, punctuating the desolation of my early twenties with a number of dead end relationships.
And then when I was twenty three, I got engaged.
It was very fashionable at the time, and I had reached a stage in my life where the aching reproductive panic of those around me had begun to take it's toll.
My fiance was Suzanne Dixon, the girl who had first placed Amanda tantalisingly out of reach.
She had gone to university and gotten herself a degree in something which allowed her to earn professional money. I couldn't honestly tell you what her job was. But she was A Professional at it.
The engagement crept up on me, and took me a little by surprise. The proposal seemed to fall out of my mouth like rogue chewing gum, as if I hadn't quite finished with it, or I'd been storing it in there for later use. I think to be fair, we were both of us a little taken aback, but as neither of us could think of a good enough reason not to get engaged, we pushed on with all the bloody mindedness of the young and stupid.
The wedding preparations went on around me, a lace tornado, with me the eye of the storm.
What struck me as time went on was how little I had to do with it all. Getting ready for the happiest day of my life was a very isolatory experience. Gradually, the wedding eclipsed our actual relationship, and we happily latched onto it as something to talk about during the increasingly regular silences. We would talk about our wedding, other weddings and people we thought would probably have weddings soon.
Each Saturday, religiously, Suzanne would purchase the local paper and examine the wedding photos of the recently hitched. I would smile and nod, or shake my head disapprovingly as the situation demanded. One Saturday she said
"Look! It's Amanda Reece! I haven't seen her for years."
For well over a decade I had loved Amanda from a distance which had precluded any visual contact. Here, now, I was about to see the love of my life for the first time. But I had to be careful not to make it too obvious.
"Amanda Reece?" I said "She was supposed to come to our school wasn't she?"
"Yeah that's right. She was my best friend in primary. I can't remember when I last saw her."
Suzanne was still holding the paper, and so I could not yet see.
"She's married Andrew McIntyre! Remember him?"
"No." I said "Was he at our school?"
"For about a month. He got suspended for stealing craft knives. And then just never came back."
"Well he sounds charming. Let's see."
Mercifully, Suzanne just turned the newspaper around to let me see it, had she handed me it, she would have doubtless noted the incessant shaking of my hands. There followed a brief period of tunnel vision; Suzanne, my room, the rest of the world all blurred and swirled away, until only she remained, the light at the end of this tunnel. Finally visible.
I had long prepared myself for the day when I finally saw her, knowing that she could never be the idealised beauty I had allowed her to become. And sure enough, she wasn't.
Her hair was a little shorter than I had imagined, and more blonde than brown. Her lips looked more or less right and she was maybe a little taller than me. But it was her. Amanda.
She was smiling, just. But it was an empty smile, a drawn on smile. A smile for the cameras. Full of teeth and lipgloss, signifying nothing. She wasn't happy. And how could she be happy? We were not together. And now how could we be?
It was over. And it never really began.
Following this abysmal revelation, even the lacklustre soda stream sparkle fizzled out of Suzanne and I's relationship, and we broke off our engagement just in time for Christmas. It was cheaper that way. I spent New Year attempting to reach her on the phone in order that we could get together and have bad idea sex. Afterwards we would both feel guilty and ridiculous, but in the short term New Year wouldn't be so cold and lonely. She never returned my calls.
All through the bitter January, I consoled myself that everything that had happened actually made a twisted kind of sense; I had been with the wrong partner, and now I was free, someday, Amanda would be free too. I would wait.
Two years later, Amanda Reece died.
She was hit by a car coming out of Tesco's. She was six months pregnant.
It was a taxi that hit her, the driver was Martin Locke, another classmate Amanda never met.
He killed himself about a fortnight later.
I attended her funeral of course, I stood right at the back, but I could still hear Andrew sobbing.
I didn't go to the cemetery, instead I spent the day walking around the streets where I so dilligently misspent my youth, eventually coming to rest outside my old school. I sat for awhile by the bins and had a brief but cathartic cry.
Afterwards, lost and confused, I wandered into a pub, firmly intending to accentuate my misery by getting bitterly drunk. Across the years of my unrequited love, I had become an adept in the art of wallowing. The pub was busy and grey, but as I returned from the bar, two girls were just leaving their table and I grabbed it immediately.
The table presented me with a decent vantage point with which to dip into the lives of those scattered around the room. And they all seemed to be happy but me. Groups of friends, couples, simply enjoying themselves without having to concentrate. For the first time in my life, I felt I had no agenda, or worse, no excuse. The girl I was meant to be with had lived and died, before I'd even had the chance to meet her. I sulked into my vodka and settled down for a life alone.
This was when one of the tables previous tenants reappeared.
"Excuse me." she said.
"Sorry?"
"Did I leave my purse here a minute ago?"
"I don't...I'll see..."
Sure enough, there it was, on the chair next to mine.
"There you go." I said, attempting a winning smile, but instead managing a kind of tortured grimace.
"Thanks." she said, and turned to leave. But then, for some reason, she turned back around.
"You work in that art store don't you?" she said.
"Yes." I said.
"I've seen you down there. Nice shop."
"Yeah it's a great place to work. Terrible hours, shit pay, good pictures."
She laughed.
"Hey listen," I said "D'you want a drink or something? Or is your friend waiting..."
"No. No she's gone home." she smiled "A drink would be nice."
"Great." I said. "Oh...I'm Steven by the way."
"Hello Steven." she said. "I'm Amanda. Amanda Reece."
.
Her hair was a little longer than the late Amanda's, and more brown than blonde. Her lips were perfect and she was about as short as me. It was definetly, suddenly her. Amanda.
I'm not the only person to accidently spend some of my life in love with the wrong person, but now, my course was clear. We moved in together within the month, entirely assured that we should be together. Love, not at first sight, but sound, the resonance of this moment echoing fifteen years back in time to my art class. Where I would promptly put a name to the wrong face.
I saw it all, a mirror reflecting endlessly upon itself stretching back across my life, showing me how things would be. My past, our future, forever orbitting the burning brilliance of this moment.
Fate does not wait for you. Fate is busy and has a lot on right now. So you must seek Fate out, stand in a million wrong places at the incorrect time, battle through the dark days which erode your vision of how things will be. And when you find Fate, as you will, hold it, shape it, make it your own. Let there be no doubt in the resolution of your future, let there be no escape from this wonderous self fulfilling prophecy.
And most of all, let there be love.