I Never Stopped Loving You

Past: Everyone at school called us The Golden Couple – not because he was the star quarterback and I was the head cheerleader, but because everyone who saw us instantly said that here were two people in love. Our yearbook marked us out as the ‘Couple most likely to get married’ and, at the age of eighteen, that’s what Todd and I thought too. When we said goodbye as we left for our separate universities, both of us meant it as an ‘au revoir’ and not an ‘adieu’: we were full of promises to write and call and to visit as soon as possible.

We meant every word of it at the time, but just three weeks later, I was in the library when a stranger sat down opposite me. He’d recognised me from a French literature class we were both taking. A simple question about our assignment turned into several hours together punctuated with several coffees, and from that moment, Luke and I regarded each other as friends.

There was nothing in it, of course. I told Todd about it straight away when he called me that evening. He, for his part, mentioned the redhaired girl who’d invited him to a dorm party. We were Todd and Jessica, The Golden Couple – of course friends of the opposite sex wouldn’t threaten our relationship. Besides, it felt good to know there was someone I could go to for a safe hug when I needed one.

For a while, everything was fine. I counted myself lucky that I had an amazing boyfriend like Todd and a wonderful friend like Luke. Luke knew my heart belonged to Todd and he had a girlfriend himself, so our friendship never crossed the boundary into something more. At least, not until something truly terrible happened that would have devastating consequences for the three of us.

It was around ten at night when I heard a knock on my door. It was late for visitors, but I opened up anyway. Luke stood there, wild eyed and grief stricken. What else could I do but let him in?

Little by little, the tale unfolded. His girlfriend had been involved in a car accident earlier that evening.

“How is she?” I asked.

Tears rolled down his face as he shook his head silently, and at that moment, I knew.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, feeling as if my heart would break for him. “I’m so, so sorry.

I held him for what must have been an hour or longer as he cried out his grief, weeping for a girl who would never marry, never graduate, never see her nineteenth birthday. After a while, tears fell from my own eyes until my vision was as blurred as his; and later still, the boundary blurred as well as we sought comfort in each other, needing to feel alive when death saturated both of us.

When it was all over, we stayed holding each other until night turned into morning and daylight crept in at the window. I think he was as embarrassed as I was; certainly, neither of us could look each other in the eye.

“What are you going to tell Todd?” Luke asked.

What could I tell him? ‘Sorry, Todd, but Luke was upset, so I slept with him to make him feel better’? ‘I made a mistake – but it didn’t mean anything’?

In the end, I decided it would hurt Todd less if he didn’t know. What had happened was a one-off and wouldn’t happen again. We’d talked about getting engaged at the end of our Freshman year and he would be devastated if he found out that I’d cheated on him after only a few months at college. Besides, my mind argued, it wasn’t as if Luke and I were particularly close anymore: we were both so embarrassed about that fateful night that we’d pretty much stopped hanging out together, even in lectures. So, the next time Todd called, I said nothing about my indiscretion.

It was another four weeks until I realised I was pregnant.

I only took a test because my friend, Caitlin, urged me to. I’d never had a regular cycle and I’d assumed that I was later than usual due to worrying about an upcoming Biology paper; but when I saw the positive result, I knew straight away that it was Luke’s baby. It had to be: Todd and I had agreed to wait until we were engaged. Even when he’d visited me in my dorm room, he’d had a sleeping bag on the floor while I slept in the bed.

How could I tell Todd I was pregnant when I hadn’t confessed to the one-off night with Luke? Did I even need to tell him? It wasn’t as if I could go through with it – I was eighteen, for goodness’ sake! And there was no way I could carry on going to classes with a baby in tow. No, the only thing I could do was have a termination. I would go to the nearest Planned Parenthood center as soon as possible.

The air was chilly and cold as I made my way towards the health center the following morning. Grey November mist created an ethereal atmosphere somewhat at odds with what I had to do. I didn’t notice the protesters until I reached the building: Pro-lifers with signs and leaflets. One of them thrust some of the literature into my hand as I climbed the steps to the entrance. I stuffed it into my rucksack quickly, feeling embarrassed on her behalf.

I didn’t have to wait long before I was able to talk to one of the counsellors. She was surprised I hadn’t taken a Morning After Pill at the time. I blushed, ashamed of my naïveté. I hadn’t considered any consequences at all.

By the time I left the center, I had an appointment lined up for an in-clinic abortion. I’d assumed they’d deal with everything that morning, but apparently, the delay was to enable me to think about my decision and make sure it was what I really wanted. What I really wanted was for that night with Luke never to have happened.

I’d forgotten all about the Pro-life leaflet until I found it in my rucksack later that day. I would have put it straight in the trash, but the front page caught my eye. Skimming through it, I felt my stomach turn over and knew I couldn’t have a termination after all.

And what about Todd? my mind asked.

I couldn’t expect him to stay with me now, but he would be so hurt by what I’d done. I would have to break up with him without letting him know the real reason why.

Present: Even now in my forties, I can still remember the pain in his voice when I told him it was all over.

“Why, Jess?” he pleads, and I want nothing more than to tell him I love him, that I’ve never stopped loving him. Instead, I try to make my voice detached, telling him that we’ve grown apart and that we’re already two very different people to the ones who left for university just a few short months ago. I’m reliving every minute of it as I gaze across the room, some sixth sense cutting through the swathes of people who’ve turned up for this High School reunion and homing in on the man I once thought was the love of my life.

Todd’s still recognisable although he has less hair and more waist than he used to. He turns his head in my direction and I look away quickly, not wanting him to think I’m still interested in him. If I’d known he would be here, I wouldn’t have come – his name wasn’t part of the list I saw on Facebook.

I glance over again, and this time, he catches my gaze and waves me over. I reluctantly make my way through the crowd, wondering what on earth we can talk about – it’s been twenty-five years since we dated and I broke his heart.

“You’re looking good, Jess. Shorter hair suits you.”

He sounds genuine, but it could be an oblique reference to the fact that I no longer sport the waist-length blonde waves of my cheerleader days.

“Let me get you a drink,” he says next, turning to a table behind him and pouring a glass of liquid that looks suspiciously like the punch that that used to be a feature of all our High School parties.

I sip the fruity concoction, hoping it contains some sort of alcohol – anything to relieve the awkwardness I feel. Meanwhile, Todd regards me seriously. “Is it really twenty-five years?” he says. “How could we let so much time go by without talking to each other?”

I remain silent, not wanting to dwell on our last conversation before this one.

“I never stopped loving you,” he says softly. “You broke my heart, but it didn’t change the way I felt.”

“It must have done at some stage,” I interject. “You’re married, aren’t you?”

The memory dances across my mind of the pain I felt when I heard from someone else that Todd was dating again. A little while later, news of his engagement filtered through, eventually followed by wedding photos in the local newspaper.

Todd doesn’t answer for a while, staring into his punch glass as if seeking inspiration. “Marie died eighteen months ago,” he says at last. “She had cancer.”

His expression is raw as he tells me and I’m reminded of another grief-stricken man twenty-five years ago and of how my attempts at consolation ripped Todd and me apart.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean every word of it. Placing a hand on his shoulder, I add, “Do you want to talk about it?”

The night air is cool as we make our way towards the football field and sink down onto one of the bleachers. Todd looks at me and quirks an eyebrow. “It’s almost like old times.”

Almost, but not quite. The Golden Couple has been replaced with two faded people in their mid-forties and we have enough heartache between us to fill these stands several times over.

I let Todd unburden his heart to me, listening while he talks about chemotherapy and hospital vigils and the gut-wrenching moment when he knew Marie had finally slipped away.

“The worst part,” he says, his voice trembling, “was telling the kids.” His face crumples and I think he’s going to break down, but he pulls himself together and carries on. “I had to tell the kids their mommy wasn’t coming home again – ever.”

My arms wrap around him and I hold him close as he cries on my shoulder, stroking his hair, whispering soothing noises.

Eventually, he detaches himself from me and blows his nose on a large, white handkerchief. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You think you’re used to it, you know, and then every so often...” His voice trails off.

“Tell me about your kids,” I say by way of distraction. “How many and what ages.”

I can tell he’s glad of the opportunity to talk of more positive things and his face lights up as he describes thirteen year old Layla and her ballet lessons, eleven year old Chad with his passion for Little League, and six year old Tommy, gap-toothed and obsessed with his puppy. At one point, he takes out his phone and shows me some pictures of them; and the ache in my heart intensifies to an unbearable longing as I wonder what our children would have looked like, had things worked out differently.

“What about you?” he says at last. “Are you married?”

I shake my head. “I was – twice. But it didn’t work out with either of them.” Josh was a serial adulterer who slept with someone else on the night of our first wedding anniversary when he was away on a business trip; and Danny was an oversized man-child who refused to get another job when he was made redundant and spent the next six months playing Mario Kart 24/7.

I don’t go into any details, though. I’m struggling hard not to let Todd see how much I’ve missed him and I’m terrified of exposing the vulnerability that lies just beneath the confident exterior.

“Kids?” he asks next, and I shake my head.

“I can’t have children.”

He’s waiting for me to elaborate, but I find my eyes filling with tears as I relive the events of twenty-five years ago: the sudden, intense pain in my stomach as I moved from one class to another; the feeling of nausea that occurred just before I passed out. Then, later, waking up in a hospital room and being told I’d had an ectopic pregnancy. The baby was gone, and so was one of my fallopian tubes. And despite the fact that I hadn’t planned or particularly wanted this child, I grieved the loss of a little life that was over before it had properly begun.

“Jess...”

And it’s now his turn to hold me as I finally tell him about Luke and the baby and confess all the pent-up guilt I’ve been suppressing for years.

“You should have told me,” he says softly as my tale comes to an end. “I would have stood by you.”

But it’s easy to rewrite the past with what ifs and what might have beens; and I’m pretty sure the eighteen-year-old Todd wouldn’t have acted as calmly as the forty-three-year-old man who’s comforting me now.

I smile bravely. “It’s all water under the bridge.”

Time flows on, sometimes stumbling over obstacles in its way; sometimes becoming a raging whirlpool of emotions – but it keeps on going. Todd and I are no longer where we were twenty-five years ago or even where we were twenty-five minutes ago.

For a while, we sit in silence, and then Todd voices what I’m wondering. “Do you think,” he says, “that we could try again – now we’re older and wiser?”

I may be older but I’m certainly not wiser because all I want to do right now is to pick up where we left off all those years ago; but this isn’t a teen movie with a clichéd happy ending: it’s real life, and Todd has three children waiting at home for him and a hole in his heart where his wife used to be.

“Isn’t that rushing it a bit?” I say lightly. “We haven’t seen each other for a quarter of a century.”

“I don’t mean right now this minute,” he clarifies. “But I’d like to call you – maybe go out for a coffee or something and see if, under normal circumstances, we still have feelings for each other.”

The air between us is thick with tension, our present longing almost palpable. But Todd’s right: we’re currently caught up in grief and nostalgia, our emotions ricocheting around our bodies as if we’re human pinball machines. We need to meet again, like two normal people testing the waters and seeing if we like each other enough to take things further.

“I’ll give you my number,” I say, keying it into his phone. What he does with it now is up to him.

He smiles then, and for a moment, the old Todd is back.

We sit there for ages, watching the stars without needing to say anything, just enjoying each other’s company. When I start to shiver in my too thin evening gown, Todd removes his jacket and drapes it around my shoulders. “Does that bring back memories?”

“It would if it was your letterman jacket,” I say. “I practically lived in that thing for the last year of High School!”

He grins. “We were such a cute couple back then. Do you remember,” and his fingers steal around mine, “how we used to sit here after practice and make out? Your dad wouldn’t let you date in the evenings, so we made the most of the daytime instead.”

Time swirls so that we are once more the teenagers we used to be. And when he kisses me, we’re both eighteen and forty-three, with all the passion and optimism of the past and the hindsight and heartache of the present.

Finally, we break apart. I stare at Todd, my heart beating fast. All the old feelings have resurfaced and I feel totally confused.

“I never stopped loving you,” he repeats. “What I had with Marie was amazing, but there was always a tiny part of me that thought about you from time to time.”

I know what he means. Kissing him was like coming home after being away for years, but we need to do this again when our judgement isn’t clouded by wine and whimsy and we’re not caught up in the romance of sitting under the stars.

“We’d better go back inside,” I say at last. “Tongues are probably wagging already.”

“Then let’s give them something to talk about,” he says; and hand in hand, we make our way back to the reunion, heading towards a future that now seems bright with possibility.