I met Raelene in a class in college. The subject escapes me, but I think it was a general studies class. Not that it really matters. What does matter is the first conversation we had. Sure, it would be romantic to be able to say something like “I’ll never forget the first time I saw her” or something along those lines, but that just doesn’t line up with reality. Before class started, I saw her reading a book about mental health, and for some reason, I couldn’t help myself.
“I probably need to read that myself.”
I saw her eyes dart over, as if to say, “Are you talking to me?”
“Hard to turn things off sometimes, ya know?” I said.
She smiled and said, “Ugh, tell me about it.”
That’s how I remember it going, at least. It was quite a long time ago, at this point.
Rae and I became friends at some point – the catalyst of which no doubt branched back to that interaction. Friendship turned into dating, and dating turned into a relationship. For a while, anyway. We had this strange spark that never seemed to fully catch fire.
One night, after a particularly good date, she smiled at me – vulnerability reflected in her brown eyes – and said, “Let’s break up.”
I laughed nervously. “Ha, sure.”
“No, I’m serious.”
“Huh?”
Like I said, it was a good date. The timing made little sense.
“You’re staying here after you graduate, right?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, at a loss for verbosity.
“I’m not,” she said.
“I thought we decided to just wait that out for now.”
“Yeah, we did,” Rae said. “But I realized I’m falling for you harder than I like to admit.”
“You’re breaking up with me because you like me too much?”
Rae smiled, but somehow did not look happy. “If this keeps going, we’re going to have a painful breakup in a couple years, or we can just part ways here. This just seems easier.”
It’s strange how etched into my mind that conversation is. I can’t even remember the class I met her in, but the talk when she broke up with me? Basically word for word.
That was 14 years ago. I wish I could say that I was able to forget about her quickly, but something about her stuck in my mind. We’d gone out for just under seven months, but the memories from that time stretched in my mind for an eternity.
About eight years after that night, I found myself staring at the ceiling of my then girlfriend’s bedroom, and suddenly, memories of Rae came rushing back. It wasn’t unexpected; it happened every time I thought I’d finally found the right person to make me forget. One moment I’d be happily embraced by the arms of someone I could see myself having a life with, then, out of nowhere, thoughts of Raelene absolutely consumed me.
And that was it. It was never the same after that. Time and time again.
It was crazy, right? To be that hung up on someone for so long. A person I hadn’t even dated for a full year; hadn’t even known for a full year.
I felt broken more often than I felt functional. I felt empty more often than I felt whole. It was a recipe for disaster, to be honest. A hole I could’ve filled with any number of vices, but somehow managed not to. Sometimes I thought it would be easier to forget, and other times, I just didn’t want to. Living in those memories was my greatest happiness. Hell, maybe the memories were a vice.
I could’ve also filled that hole with work, and sometimes I did manage to find a brief happiness in hobbies, but that missing part of me was so familiar that it became almost comforting. It was an immutable part of my identity as much as my height or my eye color.
Fourteen years. Fourteen years of having a part of my heart missing. Fourteen years of waking up at least monthly in a cold sweat from a dream about her and back into the nightmare of reality. Fourteen years of being unable to forget the scent of her freshly shampooed hair. Fourteen years of occasionally pulling up an old photo of her just to see her smile. Fourteen years of not even recognizing the smile on my face in that same photo.
Before I met Rae, I didn’t even believe the concept of soul mates. No part of that made sense to me. Out of the billions of people on the planet, you are only destined to be with one of them, and you have to hope they happen to live near you? That you’ll run into them during your life’s path and recognize the connection before they become just another passing stranger? The concept feels utterly absurd.
And yet, here I am now, unquestioning of the fact that Rae is my soul mate.
“Hey, are you okay?” Helen asked.
“Huh?” I looked up.
“Are you okay?” she repeated.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? You’ve been staring at your coffee for like a solid minute.”
“I have?”
She sighed. “Raelene again?”
I don’t know why I tried to hide it.
“Yeah.”
Helen reached forward, grabbed my hand off the table, then held it between both of hers. It was a warmth I rarely experienced from one of the few who knew how to provide it.
“I wish I could help you,” she said.
I sighed. “I know you would if you could.”
Helen and I met on a dating app a few years ago shortly after her now-ex-husband left her. It was quite clear during that first date that she wasn’t ready to be dating again, which felt like a hilariously ironic observation from a person like me.
But strangely, it was something we both realized about each other rather quickly. We didn’t date – the first one was the only one. We did commiserate, though, regularly, as friends. Just two people that felt alone, trying to deal with a problem together.
About a year and a half ago, she finally felt ready, and several months later, she met someone. I was over the moon for her. As much as I could be, at least. She had escaped from the hell that I could not, but still, she was one of the few people that understood.
Others had tried to “fix” me, but Helen knew that was impossible. She’d been through it herself. There were no words, no platitudes to make a person whole with this particular brand of loss. The usual resolution was time, but even that had failed to fix me.
“Sorry, it must be pretty depressing for you to keep hanging out with me,” I said.
“No, no, it’s okay. If anything, I was worried you wouldn’t want to hang out with the much-less-miserable version of me.” She squeezes my hand. “You wanna talk about it?”
“I dunno what else there is to say. When you mentioned something about college, it made me think about her again for just a second, and suddenly I was swept up in it. It’s the same old stuff that I just can’t escape.”
Helen nods. “That sucks, dude.”
I’d convinced her long ago to stop apologizing for making me think of Rae. Everything made me think of her; it was just a waste of sentiment.
“How are things going with Trevor?” I asked.
“To be honest, still pretty amazing,” she said.
“Good,” I said. “You deserve to find your person.”
“You sure you don’t want to meet my friend Joanna? She’s super sweet and really cute. I’m sure you’d like her.”
“Helen, I just can’t. I don’t want to hurt any more people.”
“You won’t know unless you try,” she replied. “It’s not like I’d offer up one of my friends as a sacrificial lamb, hearts ripe for breaking. I wouldn’t even bring up Joanna unless I thought there could be something there.”
“I’m sure she’s-” I began, but was interrupted by my phone buzzing on the table. My eyes darted down to check the number. It wasn’t one I knew, not that I knew many off the top of my head.
“Was that the call you were waiting for?” Helen asked. “It’s fine if you need to take it.”
“Maybe. Sorry, one sec.” I picked it up, tapped the green button, and put the phone up to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hello?”
Every cell in my body iced over.
“Hey, you there?” the voice asked.
“R…Rae?” I said, no longer frozen, but instead trembling as if I were being defrosted.
Helen’s eyes grew wide, though if she said something, I was unaware.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I told Siri to call someone, and it must’ve thought I said your name.”
I’d tried calling Rae once about 10 years ago on a particularly rough day, just to hear her voice, and it turned out she’d changed her number. I’d had no contact with her since the night we broke up until this very moment.
“This is Rae, right?” I said. It was a question I already knew the answer to. Her voice, despite having not heard it for 14 years other than in some old video clips, lived in my head.
“Yeah.”
“You still have my number in your phone?”
There was a brief pause, and I panicked. I shouldn’t have asked that. Who cares? It was a good thing, right? I still had her old number saved in my phone, despite it belonging to some dude named Paul now.
But I was a miserable husk of a person that lived in the past. Why would she-
“This is really embarrassing.”
Ah, a non-answer. I certainly won’t read into that while staring blankly at the midnight ceiling, unable to sleep for the fourth night in a row.
“I’m just gonna-”
“Wait,” I said, almost as if by reflex, the predictive nature of my brain detecting that I was about to lose her again. “How are you?”
Really? “How are you?” That was the line I chose to try to keep the woman I’d been in love with for 14 years from disappearing again?
“I’m alright,” she said. “Or I guess I was before I made this horrifying misdial.”
“Horrifying? Is it really that bad talking to me?”
“No, no, it’s not that, I just-”
“I still have your old number saved too,” I blurted out. Up until then, I’d almost managed to forget that Helen was even there, but I did notice at that moment the look on her face could only be described as ‘empathic panic.’
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Why?”
Somehow, my answer came as easily as breathing. “Hopefully the same reason you still have my number.”
There was another brief pause, and then, “Where do you live these days?”
“I haven’t gone anywhere.”
“This is probably incredibly stupid, but I’m in town for the new few days and-”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Yes, what?”
“The answer to the question you were asking.”
“But I didn’t even finish.”
“Sorry. Please do.”
“Do you want to meet up?”
“Yes, absolutely,” I replied, barely letting her words hang on the line for a fraction of a second.
“When and where?”
“The café on Main Street? I’m here right now.” Was that too pushy? Too desperate? Oh, crap, and Helen was here. “With a friend,” I quickly added. “So, whenever you have a chance is fine.”
I briefly felt like an ass for forgetting about Helen, but a quick glance at her expression told me she had little clue what was going on anyway.
“You’re downtown right now?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m literally right next door in that little boutique shop I used to love.”
My heart was already racing, but that made the turbo kick in.
“You’re next door?” I didn’t know what else to say. I could’ve rushed out of my chair in that moment, but a brief moment of sanity convinced me to calm down.
“Tell her to come here!” Helen whispered excitedly. I guess maybe she’d actually been following along pretty well. “I can leave, it’s alright!”
“You can head over right now if you want,” I said. “We haven’t been here long.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
A little voice in my head screamed, “You already intrude on my every thought, just get over here,” but out loud, I said, “You won’t be, feel free.”
“Are you sure? I could just come back later.”
“Rae, come on.”
“Well, alright then. I’ll be there in a sec. Oh, are you with anyone I know?”
“No. I’ll introduce you when you get here.”
“Okay, see you soon!”
“Yeah, see you soon.”
Speaking those words out loud to Rae felt surreal, but unless this was some horrible trick, this was actually happening.
“She’s coming?” Helen asked the moment she saw I’d pressed the red button to hang up.
“Yeah,” I said, still in disbelief.
“I’ll catch up with you later then,” she said, beginning to gather her phone and sunglasses from off the table.
“No,” I said. “Stay. Meet Rae. Please?”
She arched an eyebrow. “Really? You want the love of your life to see you on what probably looks like a coffee date to everyone else in the room?”
“Trust me,” I said. “I want you to stay.”
In a way, I still felt bad for briefly forgetting that I was hanging out with her when Rae called, but I wasn’t asking her to stay out of guilt. The fact was that I may need emotional support by the time this was all over, and Helen was, as I previously mentioned, one of the few that was actually good at providing it.
“Alright, if you say so,” Helen said.
It was probably 15 seconds after that I saw Raelene through the front window of the café. Sometimes when I was excited or nervous, time seemed to fly by, and other times, it seemed to slow down, but this time, 15 seconds felt like 15 seconds. It was as if the two canceled each other out, and my perception of time was just… normal.
Rae’s hair was slightly shorter than I remembered, and maybe a bit darker. Other than that, she matched the image I’d had of her in my mine for the past 14 years. She looked incredible.
“Wow, Rae,” I said. “It’s been a while.”
“No duh, you idiot,” my internal monologue screamed at me. I chose to ignore it.
“Hey,” she said. “So good to see you! And yeah, no kidding.”
Rae didn’t seem surprised at all that the friend I was with was a woman. In fact, I’m not sure she even registered that fact until I introduced them.
“This is Helen,” I said. “Helen, Rae.”
“It’s a pleasure, Helen.”
“Very nice to meet you, Rae,” Helen said. Then, without skipping a beat, she added, “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“You have?”
I didn’t know how to react, but I immediately realized that Helen was playing wingman for me the best way she knew how.
“For sure,” Helen replied, thumbing at me. “He’s a bit of a hopeless romantic, and you’re the one that got away.”
I froze in that moment, not quite sure I could believe what was happening. Why would Helen state this so clearly? She didn’t know Rae, and what she did know was what I’d told her from 14 years ago. I didn’t even know if Rae was single, so why chance making things awkward at this unexpected reunion?
Then, as if she was reading my mind, Helen turned me and said, “What’s going on here is as clear as day, but neither one of you were going to say anything, so I said it for you. Figure it out, it’s now or never.”
Rae and I both stared for a moment as Helen gathered her things, then gave me a quick hug. “Good luck,” she whispered, then walked off.
“She’s just like Jen, huh?” Rae said.
“Yeah, kinda,” I replied. Jen was a mutual friend we had all those years ago. Caring, straightforward, understanding. Motherly to her friends. Actually, yeah, it was the first time I’d thought of it, but Helen was a lot like Jen.
“Well, after that introduction, I’m not sure where to begin,” Rae said.
“I do,” I said. “The elephant in the room that Helen just invited before she left.”
Rae went silent.
“You still have my number. You wanted to meet up after accidentally dialing me.” I took a deep breath. “And I’ve not been able to stop thinking about you for the past 14 years.”
It sounded bad saying it out loud. Creepy? No. Obsessive. It was obsessive. But it was true. I was, and still am obsessed with her. Whether she’s married or single or whatever, I had to put my cards on the table. This was it.
“What happened between us was so long ago,” she said.
In a way, I expected it. Rae was a kind person. She’d let me down gently, and then maybe I could get closure from this opportunity that I’d been afforded by fate and Helen and whatever else.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “So, I get it, it’s okay if-”
“But I can’t get you off my mind either.”
“H…what?”
“I thought it was the right move back then,” Rae said. “I was driven. I wanted to get out of this town and explore the country, maybe the world. It’s what I always wanted.”
“Yeah, I know.” I knew painfully well, actually.
“But I’ve been doing that, and I still feel empty. All this time, and no matter where I go, my heart is still here.”
My body practically went numb on hearing those words. I couldn’t feel anything except my heart beating rapidly in my chest.
“You…you still have feelings for me?” I said.
Rae nodded. “I tried a lot of things. Changed my number, mostly avoided social media. Dated other people. None of it brought me the simple joy I felt when we were together. Not even close.”
“Holy shit,” I said, stunned.
“Yeah, holy shit,” she replied.
“It’s the same for me, and I’ve always felt a little crazy about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“We didn’t date for that long, and then we had zero contact for over 14 years. Time is supposed to heal, but-”
“-it just felt painful instead,” she finished.
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“So, what now?”
“I’d love to pick up where we left off,” I said.
Rae beamed. “That’s the reason I’m here.”