What Could Have Been

I saw the woman who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I was on the train. What the time was or what colour the sky was outside wasn’t important, even if I wanted to tell you I couldn’t. My mind was elsewhere. But let me backpaddle a bit. My story started the same as everyone else’s. I woke up early to go to a job I hated only to return when it became dark or light outside. That was my life for five days of the week as I was sure would be the case for many people. But this story was not about work, well it sort of was but it wasn’t. I’ll get to work at the end of this story if I don’t forget, I’ll do my best.

Let me now tell you the real reason why I’m telling this. I was lonely. Had been for so long I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t. My last romantical relationship had not exactly ended smoothly. But that had been ages ago. Was I still hurt from it? Yes. Was I still crying myself to sleep over the fact I was never going to hear her voice ever again? Yes I was. Nothing that could be done about that ordeal. I had promised myself you see, promised myself that I would never dare to enter another relationship. Because if I kept to myself, if I didn’t fall in love again I couldn’t be hurt again either.

Then I saw the woman who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

She sat a couple of rows ahead of me and must have been the most beautiful human I had the pleasure of laying my eyes onto. But was that all I was interested in? Physical attraction? No of course not. The reason I fell in love with her was because she was reading my favorite novel and smiling like a madman while reading it.

Finding the courage to approach her was difficult to say the least, even thinking about the idea of doing such a thing made my heart beat faster then any heart should. Could feel the sweat dripping down from my forehead. I was being ridiculous. A woman like her could get anyone she desired in life, there was no reason for her to choose me, hell to even talk to me was a ludicrous idea. Not even that. I could imagine how much she would hate to be disturbed by my presence. No one that like reading wanted to be disturbed by someone else, let alone someone they didn’t know. Woman in this day and age were already harassed enough by complete strangers. Perhaps I should simply stay seated.

No. I needed to try. You know to this very day I don’t know what came into me but I did it. I moved over to the woman with great taste in books. My heart was going to beat out of my chest and my brain would drop out of my head I was sure of it.

I seated down before the woman who’s name I did not know. My heart and my brain to my surprise stayed inside my body. That was odd. What was odd as well was that she looked at me before I looked at her again.

‘There are a lot of empty seats in this train,’ she said.

I looked around the train. ‘Yes indeed there are.’

‘What made you sit down all the way here? No offense but if you’re going to use a cheesy pickup line I’m not in the mood. No more dating for me thank you,’ it was like we were supposed to meet, the words that came out of her mouth could have come from mine as well. More specifically that last bit.

‘I promise you I will do no such thing. If you can believe it I made myself the same promise, no more dating.’

She appeared relieved from that statement. ‘Then what brings you here?’

That was the question now was it. Could you simply approach someone because you see them reading your favorite novel? Was that considered normal? I didn’t know what normal meant anymore.

‘Well you’re reading my favorite novel and I was wondering what you think off it.’ That last part was of course a lie I had already caught her smiling several times. I just wanted to talk to her, it was difficult to explain really.

Her eyebrow raised as skepticism found her. ‘Is that really so?’

‘That’s really so miss.’

‘If this is really your favorite novel then you can no doubt tell me what happens on page 217?’

I laughed. ‘How could I forget? It’s the page where Luna and Castellanos talk for the very last time before they leave each other forever.’

She seemed distraught by that information. I was not wrong I knew that because I had read this particular novel more times then the amount of good sleeps I had in my lifetime. On this one subject I could not be wrong.

‘Is there something the matter?’

Her eyes had begun shining. There were tears forming inside of them. Tears of utter sadness.

‘I’m still at page 216, I thought they were gonna work things out.’ she wiped her tears away before they could fully form. ‘I really believed that things would be okay for them, they seemed like the perfect couple. They had such a connection with one another.’

Her words made me think back to the woman who I believed was going to be with me till the end of time. From an outside perspective you could say we were the perfect match for each other. But it wasn’t the case.

‘I found that sometimes in life things are simply not meant to be. No matter how much we really want them to be. Two people who might be perfect for each other will leave each other. Two people who are unhealthy for one another will stay together until the end of time due to their fear of being alone. And sometimes only sometimes two people who belong together find themselves.’

Her distraught had seized, she was smiling. Her smile could make anyone feel better. ‘You should be writer.’

This time it was my turn to smile. ‘You know I hear that a lot, perhaps I should go ahead and write something.’

‘I think you should.’

We got to talking after that. About life, about what we wanted from it, what we hated from it. How terrible people where who simply talked to talk. The worst kind of folk really, could think of a more horrible person then someone who constantly talked about nothing just so he or she could hear his or hers own voice. I was lucky she shared my hate for it. Bonding over hate was a complicated thing was it not? I believe it was.

In what was no time at all I found myself several months ahead in time. I stood in the middle of the doorway. Thinking back to the night we met, as if it was mere seconds ago. The first time you meet someone should be special in my eyes. You only get a first time once.

‘Are you gonna stand in the doorway forever love? Because I don’t think we can move these boxes in if you do,’ she said asked jokingly.

I snapped back into the present. We had both taken a leave from work the night we met and spend it together much to the dismay of our bosses. That didn’t matter, we had a night we would remember until our deathbed. I was about to leave the doorway when I felt her arms wrapped around me. She had the most wonderful hugs nothing else compared. I truly felt like I was safe with her. Already knew that I was happy, something which I could have never imagined.

Then something far greater then me being happy happened. This was a great amount of time later but the way she hugged me made me think back of that day when we were moving in even though the days were not similar at all. You see I just came home after what felt like an eternity at work it was truly one of the worst days I experienced in the line of work which I did. She could tell that my day hadn’t gone alright, that there had been a great number of difficulties but none of that mattered I was in our home. I was back with her. I was happy again. Then everything changed, she improved by happiness by so much when she hugged me tight again, when she whispered those beautiful words into my ear.

‘I’m pregnant dear, we’re gonna be parents.’

At first I did not know how to react to this, the fear of turning out like my father was the first thing that rose to my mind. It was a fear I had since the first time I thought about having children myself. My love felt this, we were still hugging but she could feel I was worried about this. Not because I didn’t want to start a family with the love of my life. I was just scared of not being good enough.

‘Listen to me honey. You are not your father just like I am not my mother. I know you will try to do your best and that’s all I ask from you. We won’t be perfect parents but we’ll be good. I know we will.’

We let each other go, the hug came to an end, how this woman could make me feel better by simply speaking was beyond me. She made me feel safe, she made me feel loved. I loved her.

Nine months passed and the babies came, twins because I don’t know because I wasn’t god. She proved to be correct in her previous statement. We were not the most perfect parents but we did all we could which was our best. In fact the children turned out to be mighty fine humans beings if I was allowed to say so.

After the children had left home the trouble started. Nothing had changed between me and her, we still loved each other the same amount as when we fell in love all those years ago but something else had come. The sickness showed it’s first signs.

I found myself dying. It wasn’t pretty, dying never was. Some form of cancer they said, but did it really matter why? The details of it all weren’t important. What was important was that she was there with me, holding my hand and doing her best to hold back tears. We had spend such a wonderful time together I didn’t want it to end but I needed to be strong for her, she was the one who was going to be alone when I was gone. I needed to be there for her using whatever little time I had left. It got my thinking back to the night we met, how much fun we had. How much fun was to come after that night. It felt like a dream, the worst kind of dream.

‘Honey tell me, is there anything you wish you would have done but didn’t?’

It took me a moment to consider but that was all it took. ‘I do have one regret. I wish I went over to talk to you on the train, we could have had a lovely time together.’ I stared at her and she was gone.

Everything around me faded into nothingness.

I was on the train, never left. I still stared at her, reading my favorite novel, then the train stopped and she was gone forever. We never met, we never became friends, we never fell in love. I never even learned her name. Who knows what could have happened? But I suppose that that was the story of life, constantly thinking about what could have been. Could you feel loss for the nights that never were? Memories that were never formed? Love which you never felt? I didn’t know all of that. In fact there was only one thing I knew. One thing that could make me feel better. Make me feel less alone in this cold and dark world.

I needed to kill again. This time it would be a child.