Love and Laura

Laura was singularly focused on packing her suitcase. She was not going over every possible worst case scenario in her head and she certainly wasn't formulating a plan of action for each of them. She was thoroughly absorbed in the highly important task of finding a couple pairs of socks that she hadn't worn out yet. She did not even care whether or not they matched as long as she didn't have to feel the strain of a frayed hole threatening to turn her socks into legwarmers. What was she supposed to be thinking about again? Oh yes, the trip. The incredibly important trip.

By the time Laura got behind the wheel of her car, she was not at all thinking about how certain she was that things were about to go wrong. She knew he enjoyed chatting with her online. If he didn’t, he probably would have stopped replying to her a long time ago. No, that wasn’t it. The uncertainty that turned her insides into a bouncy castle had more to do with him actually seeing what she looked like in person.

While she had never intended to deceive anyone, the pictures on her profile had not been chosen lightly. She had been careful to only post or share the ones that showed her in precisely the right lighting, from her most flattering angle, and in the least embarrassing circumstances. That meant nothing from the most recent family barbecue, nothing from her old roommate's Halloween party, and nothing that gave a real idea of what she might look like when she wasn’t posing for a camera.

Just as she was about to miss her exit, the slumped form of a dead racoon on the freeway got her out of her head for a moment. It was lucky. Not for the racoon though. Did the racoon have a family? Do raccoons ever fall in love? What range of the emotional spectrum do raccoons experience? Laura just barely avoided missing another turn and gave in to the welcome distraction of attempting to navigate the airport parking lot.

There was little room in her head for catastrophizing as she navigated through security and fought her way through the labyrinth/shopping mall that was this stupid airport. She couldn’t help but bemoan the lack of adequate signage and consider it one of the great failings of the human race, along with low quality intercom speakers. Eventually and somewhat miraculously, she found her gate and boarded her flight.

The constant squirming of her insides made the turbulence barely noticeable. Her small bag of pretzels turned into a thick paste in her mouth. She was not ready for this. She really didn’t want this to end.

She knew what would happen. It had happened before, though usually in smaller ways. Back then she didn’t care quite this much. Today would be exactly the same as every other time, but more painful. Not to mention the additional pain of going through all the inconveniences of air travel beforehand.

Laura caught a glimpse of her reflection on the window next to her. That image never made her feel self-conscious or sad. It didn’t remind her of how, despite not being ugly exactly, her face never seemed to get guys to talk to her. She never envied the friends she had who seemed to have guys lining up to get to know them. She never thought about things like that.

She didn’t feel an ache in her chest about how things would go. She didn’t picture the face he would make when he saw her and realized that all he wanted from her was friendship and nothing more. She didn’t prepare her heart for the inevitable shattering of her hopes. She didn’t cycle through each memory of times that this had happened before.

Jeremy was nice. He sat next to her at lunch and talked to her all the time. She wasn’t too disappointed when he asked out Jenna instead of her. It was their first school dance after all, of course he wanted it to be special.

Kenneth was really fun to be around. They told each other jokes and went bowling after clocking out from their summer jobs. It turned out that he had actually had a girlfriend the whole time, so Laura couldn’t feel too bad about that.

Chase did actually ask her out, but she knew that he was just being kind. They talked a little about the girl he actually had a crush on while they played mini golf. She couldn’t be mad at him. At least he was honest.

She couldn’t really blame any of them. She knew that none of them owed her anything. It wasn’t their fault that they didn’t feel the same way that she did. She had become resigned to the fact that she was just better as a friend. She was okay with it.

Then there was him. She barely remembered making an account on that app, but at some point on some lonely night she had done it. Her carefully curated portrait gallery and her honest answers to the given prompts had caught his attention somehow.

Conversation started slowly and awkwardly, but he kept messaging her. They talked about their favorite hobbies, complained about disappointing remakes, and compared family traditions. She hated to admit it to herself, but she had started developing real feelings for this guy. And maybe worse, it wasn’t just attraction. Everything from their beliefs to their lifestyles seemed compatible.

She dreaded the possibility of his messages stopping. Even more than that, she dreaded admitting the fact that she wanted more from him than the friendship she had experienced with so many others. She wanted to potentially build a life with him.

His messages hinted at him feeling the same way, but she knew all that would end when he saw her. He would probably still want her in his life, but that might hurt worse than ending it entirely. She could hardly imagine the heartache if she opened her mail to find a wedding invitation with his name on it next to someone who wasn’t her.

By the time she deboarded the airplane, made her way to taxi pick up, and finally got a cab, she still wasn’t sure what she would do. She couldn’t exactly cut him off entirely, but maybe she could respond to his messages less often and let them slowly draw to a close. Then again, maybe she could stomach the pain of being in his life. She could dance at his wedding, like the photos he posts of his first child, and put his Christmas cards up on her fridge with the others. No, she couldn’t do that. Why had she let him talk her into visiting in person. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready to lose him.

Her taxi driver didn’t seem to care about how unprepared she was, because he made it to their agreed upon meeting spot, a local book shop, in record time. After all the effort it took to convince her potential guy friend or future stranger not to pick her up from the airport directly, the intentional delay didn’t buy her much time at all. The driver couldn’t have known her intentions so she tipped him generously despite his inconveniently excellent service.

She thought about asking the driver to take her back to the airport, but she stepped out anyway. She thought about going into a boutique or a drugstore instead, but she made her way to the entrance. This was her last chance to reconsider.

She grabbed the door handle and pulled before noticing a little sign inviting her to push it instead. She could still fake her death or claim she got lost. She had already said goodbye to him, the version of him that could be anything more to her than a friend, a hundred times since she left her house. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to make it one hundred and one.

She pushed the door open and scanned the inside of the shop. There were a few potential customers among the shelves full of books, displays with cute office supplies, and a truly random assortment of knick knacks on a shelf. She recognized him almost immediately.

When their eyes met, she looked away to give him the chance to pretend that they didn’t know each other in case he wanted to. Apparently he did not because by the time she looked up again, he was already beaming and walking towards her.

She couldn’t help but smile. For the first time in person she got to see the little gap in his teeth, his incredibly obvious farmer’s tan, and the little sections of hair that refused to part in the same direction as the rest of it. He was gorgeous. He was real.

She stumbled slightly when she felt his arms wrap around her. He squeezed for just a second before stepping back.

“Laura! I’m so glad you’re here! I hope hugging is okay. I should have asked. I am just really happy to finally meet you in person. I can finally tell my mom that I haven’t been catfished.”

He smiled again and stepped back slightly. His eyes lingered on Laura’s face for a moment. She felt her worry return.

“Do you want to sit down for a bit?”

She accepted his friendly invitation, and he led her to some tables with chairs at the back of the shop. She resisted the urge to get too comfortable. Why did he have to be so considerate and warm?

“Okay, wait here for just a moment, I will be right back. I just have to get something real quick.”

She didn’t know what he was getting but was grateful for the chance to take a breath and prepare. After roughly two seconds of waiting, she got used to the idea that maybe he had taken the opportunity to leave without any confrontation before he came back and sat in the chair across from her.

From behind his back, he pulled out a small bouquet of daisies, her favorite flower.

“Now that I know for sure that you’re real, would you like to go on a date with me and then maybe another one?”

Laura’s brain short circuited. The experience was blurry, both metaphorically due to shock and literally due to tears. Later, she would remember nodding enthusiastically and hugging him in a somewhat embarrassing manner.

It took a couple of days for the dread to completely leave her system. Stress does funny things to a person. She tried to convince herself several times that she had imagined it or that it was some sort of misunderstanding. It wasn’t until they had been dating for a couple months that she actually asked the question that had been burning itself into her mind.

“Are you sure you like me as more than just a friend?”

He beamed in a way that was now very familiar to her.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”