The one that got away
He was my first ever ‘boyfriend’ – I was 14 and he 15. It was a whole star-crossed lovers thing; we met, fell in love, and could never somehow manage to be together. At least that’s how it looked from my perspective.
Ten years later, he was here to visit again – our encounters were like some exquisite but brief rare bloom that lives only a few weeks out of every few years. We were both all grown up, and you could feel it. It was all empty chatter and laughter when everyone else was around, but then everyone went to bed, and we were left alone on the terrace listening to ’oud and Arabic love poetry under the stars. There were so many things left hanging in the air unsaid that I almost started swatting them away, but as it was they were left to buzz madly around the air between us. I started to get cold, and he took the blanket on his shoulders and wrapped it around the both of us, drawing us tightly together and warming my hands in his. I could feel my heart start to throb in the back of my throat; I didn’t want to look at him, I thought I might well up or do something stupid like that. Or that my heart might audibly break into pieces. But the next thing I knew we were kissing like there was no tomorrow, the kiss that should have come years ago. It felt like some kind of dream. When we got to the bedroom everything was very homey and sweet. I changed into my pyjamas (sadly adorned with childish things, but he’d seen them before a million times). He turned down the lights and we got into bed, as he stroked my cheek and told me I was beautiful. And then the fireworks.
It was passionate, tender, loving and wild; all those good things that a girl dreams of sex being, and I’d been in love with him for so long, that I was almost in a trance. And he is perfect, physically and in many other ways besides. Some tiny part of me was in hysterics that I was making love lying down, sitting up, standing, against the wall, the desk, the chair, and in the air, with the most handsome Arab man – scratch that, any kind of man – I’ve ever had the visual pleasure of knowing. Not to mention he’s one of my dearest friends, so I was glad that at that point my frequent insecurities seemed nowhere in sight, and all I could think about was this. His arms around me, the fact that he was inside me, every last curved inch of him, finally.
I knew there must have been a tear or two, I felt them streaming back into my hair, now plastered to my forehead. Being exposed as vulnerable is never my favourite thing, but I didn’t care. Let him see me cry. I was coming as though I’d never come before and at this point the tears were the least of my concerns; he was kissing me all over and I thought I might dissolve into a million pixels and vanish in a cloud of ecstatic white noise. But I didn’t. He held on to me until I’d solidified again, a sobbing, shaking, soaking mess in his lap. I couldn’t speak and didn’t want to. I was terrified I would break the spell, or dream, or whatever this glimpse of an alternate universe was. And so we sat there in silence through the night, holding on for dear life, as I cried silently into his shoulder, because I knew tomorrow he was leaving and this would have never happened.
In the morning we made breakfast together and teased each other like old times and it was nothing but a dream. The rest of the day played out like any other of those rare treats when he’s in the country: a mad rush to see other friends, food, shopping for ties (I dutifully picked them out), and a trip to the airport. We hugged as usual, but this time he grabbed onto my arm as I was turning away.
“Love,” he said, “always.”
I smiled and walked away. I know, I thought. In that alternate universe we were never apart.
