The Adventure, part 3: And so it begins

When the universe shifted three inches to the left, John and I stared at each other for a moment. The penny had dropped. Mutually. Then he swiftly crossed the room and kissed me. And kissed me. And kissed me some more. When we came up for air, he said simply, “I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you.”

“Wait...what?” I said. “Has this been under my nose the whole time? Have I been completely oblivious for fourteen years?”

“I never said anything because you were always with someone, and you seemed happy. What could I have done? The timing wouldn’t have been right, anyway. I’m a little pissed I had to pine away for fourteen years before the timing was right, but now it is.”

I had to agree. The timing was right, and although I couldn’t explain why, we both just knew. That was the universe shifting.

“I...wait. This is...something serious is happening here,” I said. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” he replied.

I considered this for a moment.

“Pockets has a crush on you,” I said. “Is that weird? I mean, would that affect--“

“I’m in love with you,” he said. “If you were dead, Pockets still wouldn’t have a chance.”

“We’ve been good friends for a long time, John. I don’t want to get into anything with you if it’ll spoil that. I mean, I don’t want this to just be a Vegas fling. And what if, God forbid, the sex is bad? Or everything turns awkward? Or--“

There was some more kissing.

“Are you really worried that the sex will be bad?” he said.

“Stranger things have happened. And, seriously, I’d rather keep you as a friend than ruin it if this isn’t going to work out.”

“It will work out.”

“You don’t know that, anything could--“

“Stop. Wait,” he said. “This is right. We can both feel it. You know this is right.”

He had me there. I was never a romantic. I always laughed at people who claimed love at first sight, claimed that you could just know about a person, claimed they had an emotional connection before a physical one. Suckers, I thought. Fools. For me, love had always started long after the initial sexual attraction; only after a certain physical and mental compatibility had been tested and confirmed could I begin to let myself be vulnerable. But now, here I was, falling in love in a matter of minutes.

Well, “falling” wasn’t quite the right word. “Falling” belonged to my last serious relationship, in which I was almost literally consumed. Love in that case was like being dropped into a vat of warm baby oil; it felt wonderful at first, but then became suffocating and was almost impossible to climb out of. And when I did, it clung to me, despite all my best efforts to shake it off. But with John...something opened up. There was no falling, no fear, no second-guessing. I turned a corner and there it was. The whole world, and him, just waiting for me.

There's a scene in “Sex in the City” where Miranda is bitching to Carrie about her ongoing drama with Steve, and she says that she always hoped that one day, all her bullshit would fall away and she would just know. Later, Steve enters, holding a “1” birthday candle. And lo, all her bullshit fell away, and she knew him to be The One. I never thought it was possible to just know, like that, that my usual anxious bullshit would magically disappear, but it seems I’ve been (happily) proven wrong.

*

This is the part where I lose my best friend.