Story #86

Here is my ruined love story:


I arrived, as an au-pair, Minnesota in late September. The first week I spend just hanging around the house of my host family, learning to know the children that I was about to spend a full year with, but as the week was nearing its end, I felt like I longed for my friends that was oh, so far away.

I had been given a list of other au-pairs in the neighbourhood, and to mend my home-sickness, I decided to send out a couple of emails to some of the, what I had hope to be, future friends. I got more than I had bargained for.

The first person to respond to my email was a girl from Thailand. She gave me her Messenger and we did some chatting back and forth. The first chat we had ended up with her sending me a /kiss emoticon, I asked her 'you know that I am a guy, right?' Turns out she had thought from my name (which was ofc. foreign for her), that she had indeed though I was a girl. We had a great laugh, and decided to go out that weekend.

The weekend came, she had arranged for some of her friends to meet us at a restaurant, and I was supposed to come pick her up at her house.
I was extremely nervous to meet this girl. It was going to be the first person of my own age that I had actually talked to since I had arrived to this foreign and strange land.

At exactly 7pm, I arrived at her house. She was already waiting for me, standing on the driveway in the dim evening light. She was incredibly beautiful, maybe the most perfect woman I have ever seen. I was sold instantly.
I went out of the car, said hi, gave her a hug and let her get in the car on the passenger seat, and then we were off towards the restaurant.

When we finally arrived at the restaurant, her friends called. They were busy with something, so they would not be able to make it. They were supposed to show us around in the night-life of Minneapolis, but to be quite honest, I did not mind at all, I only had eyes for this girl, and spending the evening alone with her would just make everything perfect.
So we spend the evening at the restaurant, decided to go see a movie, and then I drove her home. It was like a dream to be with a girl that beautiful.

About a month passed, we chatted, talked, went out, but I just wasn't satisfied, we had not gone on a real date, and I figured that it was about time for me to tell her how I felt.

I invited her to go out the next Friday. We were on our way to our destination, and she seemed really tired, so I asked her what was wrong. She responded 'I was up all night talking to my boyfriend back home'... It was as if my heart just burst. I felt incredibly depressed, but I didn't want to show her, so I put on my "fake smile/nice guy" face for the rest of the day, and I took her home.

Two more weeks passed with us just doing the regular stuff, I was acting like everything was all right and it didn't really look to me like she was noticing how I felt. I had made up my mind though. We were going to a party later that evening, and I had decided to tell her my feelings for her when we came home. I had gone to the jeweller the day before and bought her a necklace and I had hoped she would like, and I had hidden a bouquet of red roses in the car so I could give them to her right before I told her.

The party was a blast. We both made a lot of new friends, although neither of us drank any alcohol. I took her home, and we pulled in the driveway around 1am. I had everything planned out perfectly in my mind, but when it came to the real deal, it was just excruciatingly hard. After giving her the necklace and the roses, I finally generated enough courage to tell her 'I love you'. She smiled while looking at me with her dark eyes. My heart was pounding as if it was trying to get out of my chest and make a run for it.... Boomboomboomboomboomboomboom was almost all I could hear... The silence was small, maybe two seconds, but it felt like an eternity........
.....
.....
'I like you too, but only as a friend' she said. It was as I had feared, she had a boyfriend back home, and she was way over my head in beauty. I was happy though. I had finally said it, and I thought that I had gotten it out of my mind.

I was wrong...

That night I barely slept. Kept thinking about what she had said, what I could have done different and what would have happened if she has said 'I love you too'.
During that night I decided that I had let too many loves get away from me, and that I would not loose this one, not ever.

about 2 months went past, and I all of a sudden realized that her au-pair program was running out. She was to go home the day after thanksgiving. Bad luck had made it so I would not be home on thanksgiving, since I was going with my host family to celebrate it in a different state. By that time I had given up on getting her to love me, but I still wanted to spend time with her, just for the chance that a miracle might happen.

The day before I had to leave with my family, I invited the girl out to the restaurant where we first met. We talked of what we had been doing before we met and what we were going to do after she was gone. What we were feeling right at the moment never came up. I'm glad though, cause for some reason I wasn't sad, how could I be? I was with the woman I loved even though the love wasn't mutual.


After the restaurant we went to a park. It had been a bit cloudy that afternoon, but the clouds had completely lifted and the starry sky was as bright as ever. It was cold, at around freezing point, and we were walking to keep our warm when we suddenly arrived at a big lake in the middle of the park. We went out on the pier of the lake and sat down right at the tip of it, looking at the star sewn sky we lay down next to each other, just laying there, looking, listening, feeling... After a couple of minutes we started talking about deeper stuff. Our feelings, our dreams, what we were scared off. I was busy telling her a story from my childhood when she suddenly gasped and pointed at the sky. A huge shooting star had just appeared right in front of us.


She told me that we should each make a wish. What I wished for is ofc. for her to love me like I loved her. We lied there staring at the sky again, the evening was as if it had been reset; No one was saying anything, we were both just lying there, looking, listening and living.

I was starting to get a little bit cold, and she was shivering. I sat up, looked at the water, she sat up besides me. I put my hand around her shoulders, heart pounding again. She rested her head on my shoulder. I felt like I was in heaven. It was just the two of us, on the bridge, all alone underneath the stars. While we were sitting there a flash of light appeared, it was the second shooting star of the evening and it was the most beautiful and one of a kind that I have never seen before: When the shooting star was nearing it's very end, it split in two.


Maybe I should have seen that as a sign, but the night was too romantic to think about something as sad as that.
It started to get late, and even colder. I stood up, trying to get some heat. Still looking at the sky, I had not noticed her getting up too. She took her arms around my waist and just stood there, holding me. I, in total panic, took my arms around her shoulders and held her tight.
We were standing there, just holding each other for what felt like forever. The kiss I had been longing for never came, but as we went back to the car I felt like I had just had the greatest night of my life.


The next day came, I went travelling with my host family. I spend my hours longing to spend time with the girl, cause I knew that the previous night was the last time I would see her, and I felt like I had wasted my last chance.

I had no internet where we were staying, and the girl did not have a cellphone. We had no way to communicate with each other, and with screaming kids running all around, I did not have a lot of privacy to moan my loss.
I was counting the days of her departure... 4.... 3.... 2... 1... It was late, around 1am, when my cellphone suddenly began making noises. I picked it up wondering who might be calling this late. "1 Message Received". It had been send from an internet website, and only had 4 words on it:



"I love you too"









...... Sux being me ='(