Requiem for Romance

My phone rings, showing a number I have not seen in ages and a name that sends my heart racing. I take a deep breath to calm my nerves, as this is the most important call of my life.

I pick up the phone and answer. "Hello?"

"Hi Bobby," she says, her voice already quivering. "How are you tonight?"

"Wonderful, now that I am talking to you," I reply without hesitation. I can barely conceal my exuberance that she has called, yet her nervous laughter tells me that she is uncomfortable by the unwelcomed compliment.

She has called at my request, a generosity only an angel could offer after everything that has transpired over the previous weeks. A dozen letters we have exchanged, a dozen letters marked by the outpouring of one heart and the dismissal by another. My letters have confessed everything to her in words too great to number, but as she waits for my voice to announce the reason for our call, I find that the tender words I once found so easy to confess to her in former days have become like a great millstone weighing down my tongue.   

"I have some things that I need to say to you," I say, unfolding the letter I hold in my left hand that I have spent hours preparing. The paper rustles in my shaking hand and I wonder if she can hear it over the sound of my trembling voice. The words that I speak pour out everything from my heart, all the feelings and sentiments that long months apart have kept hidden within. I ask for forgiveness, I ask for another chance to make everything right...I ask for something else too, something that will determine the rest of our lives.

"Ornela, will you be my girlfriend?"

Silence, but only for a moment.

"It's not that simple Bobby. I can't...it's just that...I just can't."

My head sinks low; tears well in my eyes. For two years I have waited to ask that question. For two years I have struggled with my feelings, wrestled with them without relief, until finally my angels conquered my demons and revealed to me the one woman with whom I am in love with, the only woman I have ever loved. Her...it was always her, and now she drifts away like wisps of smoke that my hand can neither touch nor hold.

Something snaps within. My passion overtakes me as two years of anguish and regret spew forth in a torrent of raw emotions. "Are you in love with me, because I am in love with you!" I shout, startling even myself with such an outburst.

She says nothing for several seconds before meekly replying, "Yes, I am in love with you Bobby."

Finally she has listened to her heart. Finally she has acknowledged that which she always felt, yet never wanted to admit: that she is in love with me, that she has always been in love with me. Two years apart could not break our love, nor could her relationship with another. She knows that she is not supposed to have these feelings, not after so much time apart, yet they are there, binding our hearts together in a knot that neither time nor distance can break. With those simple words from her mouth I am happier than I have been in years.

"But you are with another man," I remind her. "Do you even love him?"

"No, I don't love him," she admits.

"Then why are you with him? Are you going to marry this man? Are you going to marry a man you don't even love?" 

She starts to cry.

"After you left," she begins, but before another word is uttered she breaks down in tears, struggling to maintain her composure against the torrent of emotions now washing over her. After several moments she gathers herself and continues. "After you left, I was miserable for a very long time. You just left me Bobby, you just left me all alone."

My eyes water while my throat clenches shut and renders me mute. The thought of her sitting in her room alone, crying because I abandoned her is more than I can bear. I realize now, for the first time, just how badly I hurt her when I said goodbye. Badly enough for her to flee from me. Badly enough for her to run to the arms of another man she does not love. She is afraid of being hurt again, and I am the reason for that. This is why she is with a man she does not love. He feels safe, and I don't anymore.

"Why are you making me choose between you and him?" she asks. "I am going to regret my decision either way. I wouldn't do this to you."

"I know you wouldn't," I concede without protest. "Because you are a better person than me." She is right. She wouldn't do this to me. She would have let me go a long time ago. No, that is not it...because her decisions are ruled by love instead of fear, she never would have let me go at all. I wipe away the tears from my eyes and struggle to say, "But you agreed to talk to me tonight. Does that not show you where your heart truly lies?"

"I agreed to talk to you tonight because...," she pauses, unsure of whether to admit her reason. "Because I can't say no to you Bobby." Her confession both lifts and breaks my heart. I can't say no to her either. In this moment, there is nothing that she could ask of me that I would refuse, for in my eyes she can do no wrong.

I sigh, wishing that she was beside me that I might hold her hand and look into her eyes as I make my confession.

"Every day," I tell her. "Every day for two years I have thought about you."

"I didn't know Bobby. I thought you had forgotten me."

"Your memory was always there...always. I wrote about you all the time in my journal."

"I know, I read it."

"You kept reading my journal?"

"I have read your entire journal, every word."

"Did you read the story about..."

"Bobby, I have read them all."

"Then you must know then...you must know that everything I write is about you. It is always about you. Everything my pen touches is a love letter to you...everything in my journal, everything in my novel."

"Maybe you don't really love me then. Maybe you are just in love with a character you created in your novel."

"No!" I scream, unwilling to hear such accusations.

"But maybe..."

"No!"

"It's just that..."

"No, no, no! This isn't about the damn novel!"

"Let me talk!" she demands, frustrated and upset that I will not listen to her.

We are fighting. We have never fought before. I offered her my love, but when she refused I unsheathed my sword and cut her down with my words. I don't want to do this. I don't want to hurt her, but every word from my lips draws another tear from her eyes.

As I am yelling at her she starts crying. Why is this happening now? At the time I need to be gentlest with her I am violently forcing myself upon her. I am scared. I am so scared right now, of saying the wrong thing, of losing her forever. Does she hear the trembling in my voice? Does she hear the fear? I am afraid of losing her all over again and letting the long years slip away as I spend a lifetime apart from my one true love. Everything within me is trying desperately to show her that the man who gave her up is not the same man who now asks for her love.

"I'm sorry," I eventually say. "I didn't mean to make you cry. I did not want to have this conversation over the phone. We have to see each other. Ask me to see you again. Ask me to see you in Boston."

She will not ask. She knows that if she sees my face her emotions will overwhelm her and all semblance of restraint will be tossed away forever as we fall into each other's arms. She has already admitted this to me before. Our love for one another will overtake us if we but look into each other's eyes...that is how I know we are supposed to.

"Ask me," I say again. "Please, just ask me to see you in Boston."

"I have to go Bobby."

Over the phone I can almost hear his car pulling into the driveway. She has called me when he was gone, a secret phone call that she has hidden from him. I imagine her sitting by the window, staring out the blinds while she waits for him to come back home. When she sees his car pull into the driveway she abruptly ends our call, fearing that he might catch her talking to the man she truly loves.

"Please don't go Ornela," I plead. Still she is silent. "Please don't go. I love y..."

The line goes dead. My breath is cut short. She is gone.

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The night has become my enemy. That moment when I turn off the lights and climb into bed, staring up at the dark ceiling above...I sigh. I stretch out my arm, almost expecting it to wrap around your body before remembering that you are not there. You are in another bed right now, with another arm wrapped tightly around your body, while I remain here alone....exhausted, but unable to sleep.

When we laid together on my bed in Birmingham I asked you what you want from me. "To be your girlfriend," you replied. Everything I would give to hear those words again. But they are not forthcoming, nor are they even tentatively offered. Instead, I am the one asking for a relationship...I am the one being rejected...I am the one crying alone. The greatest tragedy is knowing that we could be married right now, happy and together, but I let it all slip away. I let you go and everything that we have both gone through, all the needless pain and suffering, is my fault. It is all my fault.

You told me in one of your letters that you wish you could undo something that has already been done. Ornela, it is never too late to undo whatever you have done. You don't have to keep going down a path with a man you know is not right for you. It is never too late for us to be together...you always have a choice. No matter what you have done, no matter what decisions you have made, no matter what changes have taken place in your life...I still love you. I still want to spend the rest of my life with you and that will never change. My love for you is unconditional.

We write our own stories Ornela, I with my pen and you with our lives, and I don't believe that our story is over. You told me during our phone call that if we are meant for each other our love will find a way to bring us back together, so I have opened my hand and released you, hoping that one day you will come back into my arms. 

I don't know if you are still reading my words or not. If I knew that you were I would write you a new story every day just to tell you that I love you, with the hope that you still love me too. I have to believe...I have to believe that you love me enough to keep reading my journal, as this is the only way I know to keep talking to you. I am writing these stories because it is the only thing I have left that makes me feel close to you...I hope that when you read my words you feel close to me too. All of my stories, from my novel to this one, every word...is written only for you.

You make everything beautiful.