Love Like Woe

I found another note today, from you. I’m not sure how long it’s been sitting on the counter but I do know it’s been long enough for you to catch a plane away from here. Another game of hide and seek has started. You always seem to wander away from me.

I sat in our kitchen for hours staring at the note. They seem to be getting shorter each and every time you leave. The first was a long explanation giving reasons why you left. Eventually you learned that I had heard your excuses many times before and they didn’t need to be reiterated anymore.

I wondered what could’ve made you leave this time. Wondering was useless though because I already knew the answer.

You, my little natural disaster, could never keep your path set. The only way I could get you to do something was if it was spontaneous. Never planed was the way I lived my life with you, or so you thought. Really every move was carefully calculated to try and keep you. Maybe spontaneity is the way to keep you here.

As soon as that thought hit I knew what I had to do. I had to find your hiding spot before you had a chance to change it.

Grabbing the phone and a phone book I quickly looked up and dialed the number for your credit card company. Lucky for me I knew to expect this and memorized your card number. It comes in handy. I’ve done this before; it’s a miracle you haven’t figured it out yet.

I pretended to be you and claimed that my card had been lost or stolen. They were able to give me the last purchased item. Plane tickets to Paris. I hung up before I was asked if I would like to deactivate your card. I wouldn’t want you to get suspicious.

Before that moment I hadn’t really had a plan other than to find you but now it all seemed too perfect.

I quickly booked myself the first flight that got me directly to Paris. It was set to leave at 4:30 in the morning. It was 1:00 am and the airport was at least an hour’s drive away. I was rushing now, trying to pack a bag the size of a carry-one with a day’s worth of clothes plus other necessities.

By 2:30 I was packed and out the door. The drive there was nerve racking. Because it was early morning there were virtually no cars so the needle on the speedometer was inching higher over the limit than normal.

You and I have been playing this game since high school. Each year the stakes would increase along with the difficulty but I would always win. You could never hide forever, not that you tried too hard. You always accepted me back in with open arms because even though you might not know it, you need me.

And I need you. That’s why I keep looking and hoping that one day our game will have an ending. One with the both of us together, no more meaningless flings to distract us from each other. I can only hope.

With my bag slung over my I rushed through customs hoping that my fast pace would get me on the plane sooner, though it wouldn’t leave any earlier. People looked at me as if I was insane. I am.

Jittery limbs couldn’t sit still when I was waiting for my flight number to be called. I was nervous. What if you finally rejected me? What if you found someone else who could hold you for more than a year?

But what would make this time any different from the others? You hadn’t changed at all. Our continuous game is proof of this. The difference is me. I’m not thinking about this. I’m trying to do the one thing you could do so well. I’m not sure if I could survive the suspense.

I won’t hold you back anymore either. We could still have our games if that’s what you want; I just wanted a claim on you. I wanted a name other than the man you couldn’t escape.

The longest I had gone without you was a year and a half. I had promised myself I wouldn’t try this time, that I didn’t want you back. That was the most miserable time in my life. Worse than when I couldn’t find you and I thought all hope was lost. That was when I knew I could never stop. I didn’t even find you on purpose; we bumped into each other at fair in our home town. You had a new boy on your arm but dropped him as soon as we started again.

I was now on the plane. I, of course, was located in the very rear next to another young couple in love. The rings on their fingers and their sunny perspective of the world told me that they were newlyweds traveling for their honey moon. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

If I was lucky you would only just be arriving now. The flight from Philadelphia to France was about eight hours so it was a reasonable assumption. I would get there around 8:00 pm according to their time. I could handle that.

The exhaustion caught up to me and it wasn’t long before I drifted into a dreamless sleep.

I awoke with a stiff neck. I only had an hour left to endure before finally landing on foreign soil. You had never traveled this far before, only to places like Canada and Mexico and a few islands in the Caribbean. I had always found you though, usually because your mom felt sorry for me and gave you up.

Your whole family felt sorry for me. They all thought you would never give yourself to me fully. They might be right. There have been many times where I thought that you had finally moved on, especially when you where with that Ecuadorian fellow. It took me three weeks to finally break you down. I felt bad for him because he was a genuinely nice guy but you weren’t his.

You aren’t mine either. Not yet.

I’m hoping that this will change that. Change us.