Committed

He was tall, kind, gentlemanly but not in an overbearing-please-love-me kind of way (just enough to come pick you up but you can open your own car door, this is the 2000s you know). He got my jokes, knew enough about when to just be quiet and look out the window, he was introspective. He had an ex-wife who I had graduated from high school with, a fact that bothered me until he told me the whole story, and then I never thought about it again. I hate secrets. He taught me how to drive a stick in a red 1960s British sports car in the pounding rain. He liked reading, knew how to build a fire in three minutes flat, chopped his own wood, and had the deep baritone of a real grownup.


Our second date was at my favorite Ethiopian restaurant where I gulped glasses of Gouder ('French wine is good, Ethiopian wine is Gouder') as he told me about his marriage (too soon! my brain screamed, losing all inhibition with itself as the wine flowed and my severe attempts to avoid judgment fell by the wayside), his divorce (she's an idiot!-- lips still silent as neurons fired furiously), and the six month hermitage that brought him to the chair in front of me: happy, well-adjusted, having life lessons under the belt and a clean conscience to rest next to him on his pillow every night. He was unbearably attractive.

We moved further west and found ourselves drinking IPA at a tiny British bar in Post Alley, nestled into a leather loveseat as the aproned waiter gently complained about Seattle and I read him poems by Oscar Wilde.

He closed his eyes from first verse to closing, a half-smile resting on his face. This pleased me, and I stole glances in between lines, ostensibly for poetic effect but actually to watch the words had as they filled the air between us and settled themselves into our laps.

He kissed my forehead and I was entranced, my fingers intertwined with his as I twirled through the soft glow of wine in my stomach and Christmas lights clouding my vision.

When I woke up in the morning, I knew that it would never happen again.

What kind of girl do you think I are? No. Really. I should be committed to some kind of asylum.