Touch (Will not be completed on Wattpad)

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Noah

            Running into Eva on campus was so unexpected.  After all of these years, it is hard to believe that our first time seeing each other would come as a complete surprise.  I was leaving class when I saw her exit the room across from mine.  I wasn’t sure if I should call to her and get her attention, or let her slip out of my life again.  She made the decision for me when her eyes met mine and she smiled and began to make her way through the crowd to where I stood. 

            The moment is one I have thought about for years.  I’ve run through what I would say and what she might look like.  I’ve wondered where she was living and what she was doing with herself now.  In all the times I imagined our reunion, I would have never predicted correctly how it was going to feel to see her again.  I used to think my heart would break when faced with loving someone who would never love me back. 

            Today I discovered that my heart has let her go.  Our first hug was awkward as she said hello and asked if I was free to talk for a little while.  I had class, but something told me that I needed this talk more than I have needed anything in a really long time.  I took her to the small café on campus where I learned she was here as a guest lecturer.  Our conversation was light at first, a quick catch up of where our lives have taken us over the years we have been apart.  As the hour ticked by we finally approached the topic of our relationship and terribly painful break-up. 

            Eva has read some of my work on the topic of couples breaking up.  That surprised me and somehow also validated my work.  I sat in that hard metal chair across from her and tried hard to see in her face what I used to see, but it just wasn’t there.  I had made her something else entirely in my mind.  Across from me sat a mature woman with years of life experience under her belt.  She found the life she always wanted, one filled with acclaims and years of travel.  It is a lifestyle I’m not interested in. 

            I waited for the need to build inside me to touch her and fall back into the bliss I had remembered in the beginning of our relationship, but it has long since faded out.  There will always be a part of me that will love her.  Maybe not for who she is now, but for walking beside me during a happy time in my life.  I will always love the Eva from years ago, but I can let go of the Eva I have built up in my head. 

            As we neared the time she had to leave, she asked me how my personal life was going.  I couldn’t help but to feel a strong sense of pride as I told her about Leah and how I felt she could really be someone important to me.  I didn’t want to overstate what we have, but in the moment I realized that I wanted more.  Eva reached across the table and held my hand.

            “You deserve to love and be loved Noah.  You were never meant for a life without partnership.  When we were together you made me so happy.  I felt safe with you and loved more than I had ever been loved.  We just wanted different things out of life.”  I nodded my head and waited for regret to set in, but it didn’t.  I don’t regret my time with Eva because through it I learned the foundation of building a relationship. 

            Before she left she told me that she was getting married in a few weeks.  To my surprise I was happy for her.  I smiled as I felt no pain in my heart, just hope.  When I told her that I never thought I would see her here, she told me that she had chosen this campus on purpose.  She needed to speak with me before she said her vows because she too needed to let go of what she had been carrying in her heart.  I was so grateful in that moment that her life path had brought her back to me.  We hugged goodbye and she as she walked away she took with her the heaviness of defeat I had been carrying. 

            Now I am exactly where I want to be.  My arms full of groceries and a nice bottle of wine, I’m taking the last few steps up to my apartment.  I will give Leah all the time she needs to be on her own, but I have two more nights to show her how much her friendship means to me.  If I am lucky, in the end she will give me a chance to have my heart broken by her. 

            Thursday nights are the only nights she beats me home.  I open the door to the apartment and set the groceries on the counter in the kitchen.  I haven’t felt this alive and happy in years.  “Leah, are you home?” I yell as I pull down two wine glasses from the cabinet.  When she doesn’t answer, I set the glasses down and search the apartment for any sign that she’s here.  Just when my heart begins to give up hope, I hear the front door open. 

            “Hey, Leah.  I was just looking for you.”  I sound so perky I cringe inside.  I can tell by the look on her face that something is wrong.  I reach out to her and pull her into my chest for a hug.  “What’s the matter?”  I feel her grow tense in my arms and my heart picks up the pace from the unconscious rejection. 

            “Hi Noah.  Nothing’s wrong.  I’m just really tired.  It’s been a long day.”  She steps back out of my arms and I drop my own to my side.  It is happening already.  I am desperate to touch her and she is pulling away.  I try hard to tamp down the fears running through my head.  I nod my head and then make myself busy pouring us two glasses of wine in the kitchen. 

            “So how was your day?  Professor put you to sleep again this week?”  I love that I know about all of her classes and how she feels about each of the professors.  We have talked so much of these past weeks I feel like there can’t be much about her that I don’t know.  Except maybe what is going on in her head right now.  Her usual smile is absent and her eyes look filled with worry or doubt. 

            “He is still very good at making us snore,” she jokes as she sets her bag down.  “How was your day?”  I stop for a minute and think about what I want to share with her.  I don’t want to rub my past relationship in her face and I also don’t want to give her hope that Lyle will come back for any reason like Eva did. 

            “It was great,” I answer honestly.  She nods her head and looks down to the ground.  I hand her the wine and she jumps up onto the counter.  Something feels so off about us tonight but I am trying hard not to panic. I begin to wash the vegetables and pretend like the distance between us isn’t killing me.  She hasn’t looked me in the eyes since she started drinking the wine and yet my whole body is aching to touch her. 

            I may have had a great epiphany today, but my heart is still so fragile.  That is why when the next sentence falls from her lips my heart seizes up and drops to the bottom of my stomach.  I so easily stepped off a platform of healing and straight into another circle of hell.

            “I talked to Lyle today and he is coming this weekend so we can try to work things out.” 

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