He stared at the notebook in disbelief. Time froze, the universe grinded to a halt as he scrambled for the words to describe this. Maybe there were no words for it. Maybe he was the first to feel this intensely searing mix of emotion, this strange amalgam of confusion and guilt and heartbreak. A pioneer in the field of shock and misery.
Tom mechanically flipped through each page, racing back in time with each frantic turn of the page, transported by the words that rushed at him with the force of an avalanche.
It was all here. Every irretrievable moment in time captured and immortalized in the musty journal practically coming apart in his hands. The worn binding, delicate pages, and fading cover were deceptive; this book held the awesome power to shatter every belief Tom had ever held about Liza…and about himself. And it did so with ease.
Every childhood memory and seemingly meaningless conversations were all documented. She remembered it all. The first entry was written in large, slanted letters with basic language and plenty of spelling errors. But one sentence said it loud and clear:
Today I know I love him.
The first day we met, Tom thought. Vague in his mind, but vividly captured in the language of a second grader. The farther along in the journal Tom ventured, the richer and more sophisticated the writing became. I am holding her life in my hands.
How self absorbed I was, he thought. How self absorbed I am. He had been so focused on himself during their entire friendship, during their entire lives. Had he documented his own life, she would come up twice, maybe a third time in passing mention.
He came up on every page of Liza’s journal. Without fail.
How could he have been so dumb? So clueless? So oblivious?
Twenty years they had known each other. Twenty three long, fun filled years. They had come to know everything about each other.
And yet he didn’t know this.
By the last few pages he was on the verge of tears. The very last entry was the one that finally pushed him over. He slammed the cover closed and millions of dust motes were spewed into the air from within the old pages. His sobs began as silent tears, but grew into intense weeping that rocked his entire frame. He only read it once, but the last few words seared into brain like a hot poker:
But he’s getting married tomorrow. And I love him. More than she does, I know it. Deeper, richer, longer…her love is a mere flame next to my sun.
But he loves her. And so I refuse to cut him in half.
I will sit in the pews, watch him kiss the one in white and say “forever”. And he will be happy. And so I will be too.
And to make sure his happiness lasts, he can never know.
I do now, Tom thought, slumped over, head buried in his hands. This kind of dedication…could she be right? They did click, even in a way he and his fiancé didn’t. They had an understanding that transcended words; sometimes all they had to do was share a look. But did he love her? How could he know? This was a new avenue, a fresh path of exploration, like an undiscovered wood.
Tom straightened out and rose to his feet; Tuxedos wrinkled easily and he didn’t to iron the whole thing out again before the ceremony. It began in an hour.
The plans were made, the date was set, and the occasion was in rolling motion. This was no time for second thoughts. Tom stood up and pushed the idea out of his mind, refusing to explore the admittedly tantalizing idea of being with your best friend, the one who knows you in and out, forever. An effortless duo, like sand and ocean, like cloud and sky. It would nice, easy, natural.
Tom shook the thought out of his head. No, he rebuked. You love Rebecca.
And resolved that that was the end of that. But thoughts are not projects that one can just stop working on, simple mechanisms that one can just “turn off”.
It’s alive, a sentient, intangible creature of the psyche, one that we have never mastered control over. And its creations, its thoughts, are like a cancer. Once conceived, they take root, embed, grow, and change with or without the consent of the person it’s occupying until it is a weed with roots too far reaching, too deep, too grasping. So much so that it cannot be killed or extinguished.
I love Rebecca, he tried again, while walking to his car, keys jingling in his trembling fingers.
True, a voice in his head crooned. But maybe there’s a chance you could love Liza more.