And so it was...

And so it was she found herself a part of one of those couples she used to look at and pity. She sat there next to him, neither one of them talking, staring not at one another but at the man standing singing in the corner. Arms almost mandatorily entwined, looking like they had been together so long they had run out of things to say to one another. A wall had been erected between them, and hard as it was to accept, she knew that it had been her who had built it. Whether it was a quick process, or one of long, tedious labour, even she could not tell you. Had it grown brick by brick with every thing he had said that had annoyed, with every action which confirmed he was not the man for her? Or had it just shot up overnight, over the space of a few hours, like the ivy one suddenly notices has consumed one’s house?
It had been fruitless anyhow; she could have told you it would have been. And yet, she had foolishly listened when all around her pushed them together. She had naively believed that the love she held for him could be converted to romantic love, as easily as one would change currency before travelling abroad. Yes, she had loved him. She still did. A tender, genuine love; But not like that.
And yet, how could she now break his heart? Break the heart that had waited so long for her? She wondered if her life’s actions should depend firstly on how they affect others and lastly on how they affected her? But, could she, and should she, justify a relationship which did not penetrate to the depths of her soul and emotions? No, she could not. She could see no reason large enough to justify fooling her heart and his. Fooling his that she felt for him as he did for her, and fooling hers that she would develop such feelings over time.
Love grows with time, that is true, but earth-shaking, world-shattering love; there’s no way to generate that. It’s either there or it’s not, and you can know the chances of its being there from the first moment you catch eyes, or the first real conversation you share, or the first time your lips meet. Yes, you know. And yet, so many of us are prepared to settle for nothing more than “nice”. Perhaps we feel we should not be so conceited as to assume we deserve anything more? This may be true. But as she sat there, these thoughts whirling about her mind, she knew that she would rather wait for that earth-shattering love, than wait for the time never to come when this “nice” man would turn her world upside down and inside out. For, when it comes to love, the last thing you want to be is standing feet firmly on the ground.