Once upon a Time

Once upon a time there was a boy, who grew up too early. Left to his own devices amongst books such as Agatha Christie and Far from the Madding Crowd at the age of eight, he developed into a rather dysfunctional and cynical child, who didn't believe in the intrinsic goodness of people, who watched wars start and stop and didnt feel surprised or moved, and who didn't believe in love.
Then, one unforgettable evening, during one of the less memorable government-sponsored young-people's collectives events (read : dating service), whilst playing a particularly unmemorable game involving water pistols, socks and assassins, someone put a pistol into the small of his back, and said, bang, you're dead, man.
He spins. Eyes meet. Silence.
Painfully jerks himself back to reality. Are you sure that thing's working? She hadn't pulled the trigger. Heads bend to examine the malfuctioning pistol. He runs.
Fast forward a few minutes. He's standing on her doorstep, heart pounding, wondering how the hell he ended up here. He doesn't remember, doesn't want to remember, asking random people "who's that girl in purple?". He doesn't remember walking to this doorstep. And for the first time in his life, he is afraid. And, for the first time in his life, he doesn't have a ready one-liner waiting, he doesn't have a cynical comment as a back up if the one-liner fails. He's blank... the door opens. From afar, he hears himself, and cringes at the sheer sadness of it all. "Don't move, I'm memorising your face; I'll never forget your face".
Silence. Eye contact. An eyebrow raised in bemusement. A twitch of a smile, between two mouths. 180 degree turn, and walk, calmly, calmly. Don't trip. Damn that was cool.
Fast forward a few months. They're talking, on the phone. They're laughing. He's happy. Truly happy, from the heart. The cynic, is happy. The cynic has nothing cynical to say. He says something silly, she laughs, the night melts away.
Fast forward a few years. She's gone. A brief farewell ceremony, she kicks him gently in public and says... what? Does he remember it wrong? Was she expressing her affection for him in public to everyone? He convinces himself he remembers it wrong. It doesn't make any difference anyway, she's going, going, gone.
She's gone. Too far away to talk to. Near enough to write, but everyone knows what happens as you grow up; writing? Dream on.
Fast forward a few more years, she's back, she's gone, she's back. Everytime she's back, he laughs. He realises he's fallen in love with her, his best friend. And he realises it started the second he felt the gun in his back. And he realises that the trigger was pulled after all, the second he looks at her, head bowed in prayer, and wants to spend a lifetime protecting her, by her side, making her laugh, laughing with her.
Fast forward a decade.
He's lost her to someone else, lost her to distance, won her? through irrationality and a six thousand mile, forlorn, pointless flight - against all odds, against the advice of her best friend. And lost her, again, to distance, and common sense. Her common sense, not his. He played along with that, because she wanted him to. He does so much because she wants him to, but he feels something snapping.
He feels cynicism setting in, even when she talks to him. He feels his soul slipping away.
He has to run. He tells her never to speak to him again. She's upset. She doesn't want to. And he says it again. She's hurt, he can see it in her eyes, as she talks on the phone to someone else to tell him to call back later, her world is crashing down around her.
His heart breaks. He wants nothing more than to hold her close and tell her how sorry he is, that he's so selfish, that he's such a rotten friend. If there's one thing he's really wanted to do between them, its to hold her and apologise. You'd think it would be to kiss her on a balmy, barmy, bewildered night, sitting on the steps of an esteemed institution - but it's not. It's just to hold her close, maybe for a fragment of eternity, and press his sincerest apologies into her, through his costal cartilages.
But he doesn't.
Fast forward half a decade.
And he's lost her. So, so completely and utterly.
And he remembers her still. He remembers her laugh; he remembers those eyes. He misses them, almost every day. He revisits places that remind him of her. He's tried and almost succeeded to fall in love with other girls. But he still hears her voice and mind in his head.
And it feels like he's lost. He's got a good 60 years left to live, and he knows it will be good. He knows it will. But part of him is sad, because he knows she won't be in the picture. and the days of laughing, and laughing, and laughing, have died.