An Overdue Meeting

I thought I saw Josh at my graduation from college. That's what I'm talking about at the end. ------------------------------------------------------------- “An Overdue Meeting” Josh and Leslie meet but really __________and Cindy. It’s a peaceful area in his neighborhood. It is behind a funeral home, of all places. There’s tall trees and green grass. There’s a white gazebo and a little pond. He looks almost foreign to her, it’s been so long. He looks better than the last time she saw him but rugged. His hair is still blond and his eyes are still blue, and that’s all. She looks older, wiser and more confident. Her hair is shorter and she’s not as thin, but still beautiful. “Why am I doing this again?” she thinks to herself, when he walks up unsteadily and with a blank look on his face. “God, he doesn’t look the same. I didn’t want this person did I? Ok, though. I have to do this.” “Hi,” she says, in an unsure tone, and looks sideways. He nods his head. She’s sitting in the gazebo. He sits down, somewhat comfortably on the other side. There they are again, sitting across from each other. “I’ve been through a lot and I’ve been a lot of places,” she begins talking. “I’ve learned a lot. I know what I’m good at. I know what I love. I know now.” He seems slightly glad, but he’s quiet. “But, you know, of all the things I’ve found, I’ve never found anyone like you. And, I don’t want to hear anything about how ( I say what he said which I will say on Oprah).” She was showing her confidence and growth. “I don’t give a damn. It doesn’t mean a damn thing. Not then, and not now. I’m more than ( mention it again) ” He looked a little shocked and the look in his eye said he was taking her seriously on that point. “I gave you my all. I gave you my heart, my soul and everything but my body. I gave you all that I had in me. Maybe you didn’t ask for it, but you always let me trust you, and I just kept on. I’ve tried to be content with people who have come along since then, and they truly have nothing to offer me. What am I supposed to do? How do I get back what I gave you? How do I get it back? Huh? I gave you 150% of myself, and I got nothing but silence and rudeness in return from you. I got nothing.” He still sat silent, and he put his head down a little. She continues, “I’m so dead on the inside. So dead. I thought I was ignorant for thinking that we had something special because you could read my mind and just listened, and for thinking that I saw something and felt something when you’d walk me to the door. I thought I was ignorant for thinking that was the real thing, that it was special when everyone would say, ‘Well, he never tried to kiss you did he? You guys never went out. ‘ I thought I was just ignorant about relationships, so I finally kissed a guy, and everyone seemed happier with me. I finally joined the crowd, but you know what? I’m back to the beginning. It still doesn’t make anyone stay or validate a relationship.  I’d take what I had with you, again, if I had the chance, but I can’t find anything like it. What am I supposed to do? Tell me.” She forgot that he looked different—what he looked like didn’t matter at the moment. She forgot that there was so much time between them. She was back to being honest. She was finding herself again. It was like back there, again. Oh, she got him. He didn’t know what to say. He looked like the guy she saw out in the audience she graduated--confused, conflicted and at war with something. He had his head in his hands and then looked up, and looked in her eyes. They were face to face and eye to eye. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> (I debated at the beginning to make it that he tells her that he’s married, the most realistic idea and then I thought that if I did that, I’d have problems with writing all of it. I’m not going to make it like the last chapter of my book.)