Meant to Be

I’m driving home and I can’t stop looking in the rearview mirror, making eye contact with myself.

I know your secret, I think to her, to the woman in the mirror with the dilated pupils.

We don’t usually pay attention to what other people are doing in their cars. Eyes on the road, and all that. But I think everyone can see me, and they all know. They know my lips are slightly swollen, like I had just been kissed for hours and hours and hours. They can tell my palms are sweaty. I might as well have a big neon sign on the top of my car, with an arrow pointing right at me.

I feel like a criminal. My heart is thump thump thumping in my chest, my cheeks just a smidge too pink for the weather. We’re having a warmer fall and I look like I am flushed from the cold. I blast the air conditioning in the car to try and clear my mind. I feel like I just got away with committing a murder and I am fleeing the crime scene. My heart can’t tell the difference between a high-speed chase and the fact that I just missed my turn because I am so oblivious to the world around me.

I don’t want anyone else to know my secret. It’s mine. I want it to be mine for as long as possible. But I also want to scream out the window and honk my horn and swerve my car and laugh and whoop. I want to run victory laps and phone the newspaper, this is front page news. I want to wrap up this silky feeling and weave it into gold like Rumpelstiltskin, and wear it proudly as a chain around my neck. I am just as greedy as the man in that story. I want all of this, as much of it, forever.

I park the car in my spot and notice brown leaves on my windshield from the big oak tree outside of his house. They must have fallen overnight. I have to clear them off before I drive anywhere else, because someone will know these are not the same leaves as the trees in front of my house. They’ll take one look at my windshield and just know that I wasn’t at my friend’s house last night like I said I was. She also has different leaves, and I wouldn’t want anyone to wonder.

I feel like reminiscing, so I think of the first time we met. We were at the grocery store, and the line was moving so slowly. He was in front of me, buying flowers. He kept sneaking eye contact at me, and then looking away as if I wouldn’t notice. I knew he wanted me to say something, and found it sweet that he was so shy.

“Lucky girl,” I said, nodding at the bouquet in his hands.

“They’re for my mom,” he replied, looking bashful. He glanced at the line in front of him, as if wishing it would move even slower so we could have our moment.

“Well,” I smiled, showing him how happy I was that he was single. “Lucky mom.”

They opened up another lane then, and he was forced to leave too soon. He gave me a passing smile as if saying how unlucky he was, after all. I met his disappointed look with one of my own. As he walked by, I caught the scent of him. He smelled like toothpaste and a musky cologne.

I sat in my car in the grocery store parking lot long after he left, gripping my purse with both hands. I needed to make sure I remembered every second of this moment. I repeated his words in my head until I could match his exact tone. Understated, but sure.

They’re for my mom.

I rolled the phrase over my tongue, whispering it under my breath until it felt like something I had said myself.

I didn’t follow him home that night. That would have been too much. Too soon. But the world is so small, and fate has a way of bringing people together. A few days later, there he was, standing in his front yard, tying up a bag of leaves. I had just been driving by, just happened to be on this street. Coincidences like this are what picture-perfect, big-screen movie romances are made of.

I slowed but didn’t stop. That would have been too obvious. Instead, I memorized the details: the color of his house (dark brown with white trim), the shape of his mailbox (arched, like a tiny chapel), the make and model and license plate number of his car (Honda, silver, a practical man). The way his white T-shirt clung to his back where he was sweating from the yard work. The pinkness of his neck from the sun that the big oak trees in his front yard couldn’t shield him from.

That night, I parked two blocks away and walked back, pretending I was just one of the neighbors going for a walk. I just wanted to see his living room. Did he have a real couch or one of those bachelor futons? What kind of life did he live when he thought no one was looking?

And now, weeks later, I know him.

I know that he leaves for work at 7:45 a.m. sharp, but he always sits in his car for an extra two minutes before pulling out, checking something on his phone. I know that on Mondays, he takes the trash bins to the curb and then stands outside for a few minutes, looking up at the sky like he’s waiting for something. I know that on Wednesday nights, he watches a movie alone, usually comedies, and he has such an underrated sense of humor.

I know he eats toast for breakfast.

I know he sleeps with one pillow.

I know he hasn’t brought a woman home in weeks.

Last night was the closest I’ve ever been to him.

I parked across the street for longer than usual, watching the shadow of his movement inside his house. He brushed his teeth at 11:03 p.m., I could hear the faint hum of his electric toothbrush through his slightly opened bathroom window. I pictured myself next to him, brushing my own teeth. Him wrapping his arms around me from behind, looking at us in the mirror and laughing.

Instead, I was in my car, huddled underneath a blanket I keep in the backseat for picnics I never go on. I chewed on my lower lip, my worst habit, and cracked the windows down to keep the glass from fogging up. The oak tree above me swayed, the wind whistling through its leaves. I whistled lowly with it, joining it in making music. I imagined that if he heard the sound, he would think it was the wind. Not me. Never me.

And then, something unexpected.

He stepped outside.

Barefoot, his T-shirt wrinkled from falling asleep on his couch again, he stood on his porch and stretched. I saw a flash of his hipbone as his shirt rose up. He exhaled a deep breath that I could almost feel on my cheeks. I shrank down in my seat, gripping the steering wheel. I breathed quickly and quietly, afraid to blink. He rubbed his hand over his face, looking out at the street like he knew something was there.

Like he could feel me.

For one electric moment, I thought he might walk toward my car. Knock on my window. Ask me what I was doing.

And I would have told him the truth.

Lucky girl.

I would have told him everything.

They’re for my mom.

But he only sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and went back inside.

I didn’t leave until the first light of morning.

Now, sitting in my own driveway, I trace my fingers over the brown leaves on my windshield, proof that I was there. Proof that he was close enough for the wind to carry something from his world into mine.

I bring a leaf to my lips and kiss its dry, crinkled surface.

I will go back tonight.

And maybe this time, he will see me.

Maybe this time, he will understand.

Maybe this time, he will finally let me in.