A Final Goodbye

Final Goodbye.

Endless nights chatting over the Internet had taught me much about him. So now it was simply putting a face and a voice to the words that had occupied my evenings for so long.
I liked him, I liked him a lot. He felt the same. I suppose you could call our romance one of the many new aged ‘internet relationships’ that as children we are warned so much against. Never talk to strangers. He was a friend of a friend but that made him no less of one. No less of a stranger.
Since we had arranged to meet, I hadn’t eaten such was my absolute terror at this new aspect of my life, something I had only read about. You cannot learn everything from a book. Boyfriends.
I was late even though I had made sure I’d left enough time. Our meeting place was to be outside Ottikas; shamefully I admitted, it was the only place I knew in town.
I got there expecting, I’m not sure what but there was certainly no prince charming standing outside waiting. I was wearing outrageous clothes in an attempt to get noticed, I hoped he would recognise me.
My first thought was that he wasn’t there, that I had been let down. Again. This in truth was our second attempt at a meeting. Our first had not happened for many reasons. So I stood, boiling in my own chemical juices feeling the adrenaline shooting through me, praying to any god that might listen, to let this work.
It was then that I noticed a person sitting on a bench opposite the entrance. On a double take and a heartbeat of anticipation hand in hand with terror, I realised that he matched the pictures and the description. He had an aura about him, he emanated self-confidence and relaxation. My perfect opposite. There was also something unsettling about the way he held himself. It was a closeness around him.
Catching his eye I was now certain it was him, and he sat watching me watching him. I smiled, more out of relief that he had the manner to show up than anything else. He stood. Now I could see him. Now I could finally look upon the one who had confessed deep feelings for me without even meeting me. Was he really real?
What was I seeing?
As he got up, he just kept getting up. He was so tall! At least two heads higher than me, or that is how it felt.
His eyes were shrouded in black-rimmed glasses. I would love with all my heart to confess that when our eyes met there was an electricity, a connection. It would be terribly romantic to have a spark and a sign from the heavens that this was blessed. I would also love to say that I can still remember the colour of his eyes, but I cannot on either account.
His hair was black and shoulder length, a much desirable trait yet he was not the picture that had infested my mind like an obsessive disease for the past week. After all the nights lying awake too full of anticipation and fear. Could it have been anything else, so built up in my mind was he?
There was my angel, too tall, muddy-eyed, adorned in dirty black clothes and smelling of smoke and leather.
I will never forget him. I never loved him, I never did and I never will but it was a nice fantasy. I still stayed there though and let him take my hand and hug me and walk with me. We had no trail of virgin white doves following us, no proclamation of undying love or pumpkin carriage to whisk us away to his castle, yet I was content.
I guess it was the egotistical idea that another human being with no obligation to ‘love’ me, did anyway. The idea I know now, after running this through my mind thousands of times (and will and thousand times more before I am through). It was the idea that made this meeting special. The idea, behind my black angel.
I was no longer a child. Its silly to think that five seconds in the company of a boy who knew nothing more than I did suddenly made me grow up. But that is what it was! A turning point but also a farewell. A silent goodbye to a now forbidden child.
It’s a funny feeling standing next to a person who has changed your life. Knowing that it is the ending to the first chapter to a small part of my story.
And another beginning.