Timing
Thirteen years, four countries, one night spent in your bed, one night with you in mine… oh and that one time on my couch… and a couple drunken kisses, and countless exs and lovers since we met in Uni. And by this time next week, you will be here.
You were a year ahead, with such kind eyes and a deep laugh—I was instantly smitten. We always had good chemistry, conversation was easy, flirting came naturally. But I was always dating someone. We finally hooked up two years later, and it was so much better and more than I thought it would be. A few days later I asked you out, but you turned me down. A relationship wasn’t what you wanted. Timing wasn’t right. I like to think that on some level, you always knew that I was more than a casual uni relationship. We had that other drunken hook up on my couch, a couple months later, which again left my head swimming. But I didn’t try to make it anything it wasn’t.
A few months after that night, you asked me out, but I’d started dating someone new a couple weeks before. Timing was always wrong. I ended up staying with him for 6 years. I was good, I was faithful to him, I never cheated. Except that one very drunken night we made out after dancing at a friend’s birthday party. And that night a few years later, before you moved away when you hugged me like the world was ending and pinned me up against the wall outside the bar, and we very nearly went back to my place, before your friend came back and I came to my senses. And that Sunday when you were in town, when I lied about who I was having brunch with, and we walked around our university campus, and kissed in the quad, so intensely that my head spun, reigniting passion that I hadn’t felt in years. I broke up with my ex five days later.
Two weeks after that, right before you moved to Japan, when things were less complicated, we had that magical, passionate afternoon in my bed. Fueled by reignited passion and the intensity of knowing this was only a tiny stolen moment in time, the world stood still for a couple hours. You had to move to Japan a couple weeks later. Timing was still wrong.
We last saw each other nearly two years ago. I was about to move here, and you had just found out that you’d be moving here in two years. I had a wretched break up, and you were trying to make long distance work with someone halfway around the globe from you. You still hugged me close and held me like the world was ending. Maybe timing would never be right.
But we’ve stayed in touch than before, and through the pandemic and lockdown, its only become more consistent. Despite being in different countries and time zones, we’ve gotten closer than ever. We text all the time, have even started video chatting. I thought at first it was just friendly, that only I was starting to have feelings, but between the birthday present, and the video chatting, and the texting that is always flirty and not infrequently turns to inuendo, it has gotten harder to deny that you are feeling the same. You move here next week. And maybe after thirteen years, maybe, for the first time ever, our timing is right?