Brave Enough To Love Again

Chapter 15

Eden

Many know the expressions time flies and the time passing is like watching the paint dry and time is standing still.

And I had already long been aware of the fact that our brain was responsible for those different perceptions of time. Our brain was the film player of the movie we called our lives. It had the capacity to push the fast forward button and scenes just seemed to come to pass much quicker than normal. One was only left wondering how those moments could have gone by with the blink of an eye.

The last five days of my vacation were definitely fast-forwarded. It took a lot of effort to try to remember every tiny detail that happened during the time I was with him. I knew I could do a play-by-play in my head but that would require a lot of concentration.

However, in between those hurried moments there were brief periods of times where everything appeared to be in slow motion. As if my brain had pressed the pause button, and since time itself was an entity that cannot be stopped, everything instead seemed to have slowed down immensely.

After spending all of those days with him, I could with absolute certainty and without a doubt in my mind, say that Keane's presence was the most enjoyable and most satisfying thing I had in my life then.

On Tuesday after he knocked at my door to ask for my number and subsequently invited me to grab food, we ate at a Thai restaurant close by. If one asked me about the time we spent there, how it was, the atmosphere or the taste of the food, I could not have answered any of it, without initial moments of deep pondering. All that my brain registered were us talking and sharing laughs. The food and everything else had been pushed into the background.

Some snippets of our conversations were easily accessible than others.

"Five things only few people know about you." I wished to know.

"Okay. Hmm...I'm ambidextrous, a polyglot, have a weakness for animals of any kind, have recently attained a black belt in karate and I was a late bloomer."

"Late bloomer?"

"Yeah. This." he motioned at himself, his body up and down, "I worked damn hard and only recently achieved this. I was the scrawny kid with thick rimmed glasses throughout high school and college. You already know how I spent most of the time behind books and with my mother who couldn't overexert herself, while she was alive."

I had trouble conjuring the images of the high schooler Keane he was describing to me. All I could do was nod and look him up and down.

What a bloody good job you did with your body! I want a piece of that deliciousness! Mmm...mmm...mmm...

"Now, you." he demanded.

"Oh, me? Let me think" I mused, "I danced competitively when I was little, had a gold fish named fishmac, wish to one day own a room filled with books from floor to ceiling along all four walls, I'm allergic to dandelions and got my first kiss during a session of seven minutes in heaven when I was thirteen."

"Nice. Who was the lucky guy?"

"I can't remember his name."

"Embarrassing moments?" I continued to ask.

"There was a scene during high school, that used to embarrass me, but not anymore, and it's the only thing I can think of right now," he began.