Once I got into the real world I drove a crappy car, because I couldn’t afford a nice one with the crappy pay from my crappy job. I barely even got the job I had, and only because the shear mass of my pathetic life weighed down on my bosses con­science so much that it’d have been like kick­ing a three-​legged puppy while it was down. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job and the people I worked with. It was just crummy pay, which resulted in the crummy car.

I did manage to move out on my own, but much like my car, my place wasn’t exactly fan­tas­tic. The roof leaked, the tap leaked, the shower leaked… pretty much any­thing that could leak, did. On top of that, it was above an Indian fast-​food joint. This resulted in every­thing I owned smelling a tad too strongly of every kind of curry and spice known to man, and all at the same time. It had one window, and it was small. Really small. Insanely, stu­pidly small. I paid too much rent for it, but I was too much of a sucker to say anything.

I hadn’t kissed a girl until I was 24, and I won’t even bother embar­rass­ing myself fur­ther by going into the details of my non-​existent sex life.

Suf­fice it to say, I was pathetic in every pos­si­ble way. I was the def­i­n­i­tion of ‘last place’.

Then I met Kam.

Kam was a girl. Kam was a girl I met at a coffee shop while wait­ing in line in a coffee shop to buy a coffee that was far too exotic and far too expen­sive for me. I had had a rather good day at work, and I felt like treat­ing myself. She was in line behind me, though I only found this out after I had bought my way-​to-​expensive drink.

As I turned around, our eyes met.

I was in love, simple as that.

As I walked past her, I knew that she was ‘The One.’ I had to talk to her. I had to talk to her and find out her name and what she likes and what she hates and if she had pets and if she liked to read. There were a mil­lion other things I wanted to ask her, but at that moment I slipped on a wet tile and went down like a sack of potatoes.

—

When I came to, I was still on the coffee shop floor; my coffee rais­ing the price of the tile that it had spilled on, and many a gawk­ing person hov­er­ing over me. Kam actu­ally had the decency to try and help me up. It took a couple tries as I was slip­ping far too much. She told me to sit still because I was bleed­ing, and it would prob­a­bly be best to get a doctor to have a look at me. I’m pretty sure I agreed, but the whole thing is a little hazy. I remem­ber asking her name (Kam), but after that I forget. From what I gather I passed out.
—

When I came around again, I was sit­ting in a gurney. Kam was sit­ting there, as wor­ried look­ing as any­thing but hadn’t noticed I was awake. I man­aged to steal a couple moments to appre­ci­ate her.

She wasn’t the cutest girl in the world, but she had a charm about her that blew me away. Just look­ing at her nearly brought me to tears, though that could have been the endor­phins wear­ing off. Time slowed as I took every part of her in: her eyes, her hair, her skin, her mouth, even the way she sat. Every­thing about her was breath-​taking.

Then the doctor came in, and time resumed it’s normal speed. He used some of that faux ‘trauma doctor charm’ and said that he was glad to see me con­scious. Not exactly a high bar, but it was good enough for him. He asked Kam what hap­pened as he didn’t trust me to retell the tale. He had a look at my head and said that I was indeed going to need a couple stitches. He left for a moment, and return­ing with a nurse in tow, he told me to turn around so he could “patch me up.”

When the doctor had fin­ished stitch­ing me up, which took a couple tries because appar­ently my scalp rejects local anes­thetic, he told me that I’m lucky I didn’t have a con­cus­sion and that my friend was smart to call para­medics. With that, he dis­ap­peared through the door­way to treat some other person with min­i­mal enthusiasm.

Kam asked me if I was okay, and I asked her if she wanted to go get some­thing to eat.

I didn’t expect myself to say it. Asking her that showed way more con­fi­dence than I actu­ally had. I still blame the fall to my momen­tary lapse of Loser­dom. She was so blind-​sided that she actu­ally agreed! My first date in years, and I got it from a trip to the hospital.

If only I had known it was that easy.

—

We walked to a little diner near the hos­pi­tal, because nei­ther of us had trans­porta­tion. I had ridden in the back of the ambu­lance, and appar­ently she had as well.

We started to talk, awk­wardly of course. I asked her about her­self, if she had pets, if she read, and about three per­cent of all the ques­tions I wanted to ask her. In turn she asked me sim­i­lar ques­tions, and we ended up having a lot in common. It was at this point that my pre­vi­ous feel­ing of The One had been con­firmed. I had to be with her, and that was that.

Find­ing a diner, we went inside and got some late break­fast. We fin­ished dinner, and I asked her whether I could see her again in a less hospital-​related way. In a shock­ing turn of events she said yes, and I nearly choked on my much-​less-​expensive coffee. She thought I was cute in an awk­ward, nerd-​next-​door sort of way. I decided to take this as a com­pli­ment and asked her for her number. She scram­bled through her overly-​large purse and dug out a pen and paper. She scrib­bled her number down, handed it to me, and then some­how man­aged to flag down a near-​by taxi.

This girl was magic.

I walked the 43 blocks home.

—

Our first date is some­thing that was so won­der­ful, so pure, that it will for­ever be burned into my memory. We met at a park half-​way between our homes. I brought a picnic basket filled with the nicest foods I could afford. Granted that didn’t really add up to much, but as Kam put it, “It’s the thought that counts, silly.” I can believe in that.

We met with it feel­ing almost like it was the first time all over again. We walked down a wide path sur­rounded by trees, both of us afraid to start talk­ing. Moth­ers with strollers would walk past us, giving us know­ing looks. Chil­dren would run blindly past us obliv­i­ous of the awk­ward air that they too would have to deal with when they grew older. I lis­tened to the world, trying to glean some knowl­edge from the winds and the trees and the dirt.

She broke the silence by asking me how my day had gone, and told me about hers. I couldn’t trust myself to talk much, so I lis­tened. I didn’t mind being the silent one since It’s some­thing I’m used to. No one both­ers to pay atten­tion to me, so I end up being a lis­tener any­ways. She was thank­ful for some­one who was such a good lis­tener. Who would have thought that being ignored for a good por­tion of your life would finally pay off?

When we came to a nice clear­ing, I set up the picnic and we sat down to eat. The sun was just moving through the trees pro­vid­ing us with a semi-​shade, and the wind blew through the leaves softly, cre­at­ing music that you can only hear in your mem­o­ries. If the day could have been any more pic­turesque, there would have been little ragged mice with vio­lins play­ing to the side, tears in their eyes.

As we ate, I made it my mis­sion to sit beside her. Juve­nile I know, but I didn’t have much expe­ri­ence at this. Back to basics and all that. My self-​induced mis­sion took roughly 2 hours of eating, drink­ing and con­ver­sa­tion, all the while my minds wheels turn­ing on how to find any excuse to move closer. She either didn’t mind or didn’t notice; I assume she knew what I was doing but let me do it. She was always so under­stand­ing; she could read me like a book.

I made her laugh, and she made me smile. I told her jokes that I had heard, and she told me about her life, and the little things that made it spe­cial to her. I told her she was spe­cial, and so spe­cial things nat­u­rally came to her. She blushed, and I blushed, and we sat there on the ground silently com­pet­ing for who closer match the shade of an apple. This would be later be my fond­est memory within what is already my fond­est memory.

As the sun started to set amongst the trees, and the winds started to cool, we opted to pack it in for the day. If I had had it my way, we would have sat there until the ends of the earth. She made every­thing brighter and more won­drous. She opened my eyes to all the little things I never appre­ci­ated. Her laugh­ter was music, and her smiles fought the sun.

We packed the food and the wrap­pers; the forks and the plates. I folded the blan­ket we sat on and stood up. We walked back to the entrance to the pack in silence, lis­ten­ing to nature sing us to the end of the date. The air was no longer awk­ward, but full of magic and a creep­ing joy. I would have jumped and clicked my heels if I hadn’t been sure that I would have fallen right onto my face. I opted for allow­ing my insides to vibrate in happiness.

When we were part­ing ways, I stum­bled over myself asking of she’d had a good time, if she was happy, and if she’d like to go out again. I know I got all three ques­tions out but they may have all been one word. She laughed, put her finger on my lips and shushed me. She brushed her hair behind her ear and leaned towards me. Before I knew what was hap­pen­ing, she was kiss­ing me. This soft, elec­tri­fy­ing, burst of joy. It wasn’t a hard kiss, or even a long kiss, but I returned it, and for a moment in time, every­thing in the world was right.

We sep­a­rated, the world return­ing to normal. I watched her walk out of the park and hail another taxi.It was only after I watched the taxi leave that I had no idea if I would see her again.

I still think she did that on pur­pose to make me call her again.

—

After a couple months of dating, we were offi­cially mad for each other. We had done all the stupid cuddly stuff that hideously cute cou­ples do together: going to the beach, going to car­ni­vals as I spent way too much money wining her a stuffed animal (I’m not a very good throw or aim), watched the night sky, the whole lot.

We were together when­ever possible.

The best part about it was that I didn’t feel like such a loser when I was with Kam. She was so cute and smart that by simply being around her, I felt smarter and cuter and not as much of a loser. She helped me find a nicer place, helped me find a better car for the same money, and even con­vinced me to ask for a raise at my job. She turned my life around, little by little.

In return I gave her the only thing I could offer: myself. If she ever needed help with any­thing, I was there. If she needed laun­dry picked up, I was already on my way. If she needed some­one to call in sick to work for her, I was on the phone. When­ever she needed to cry about some­thing, I held her like it was the end of the universe.

We were in love like it was the only thing that mattered.

—

Even­tu­ally things got more… inti­mate. After dating for nearly a year, our occa­sional snog­ging had been pushed fur­ther and fur­ther into an adult-​oriented sce­nario. I’m not going to gloat about it or release any sullen details because I don’t need to. Our love was pro­gress­ing phys­i­cally as it was mentally.

One night after going for an evening walk and get­ting ice cream (again, very sickly cute couple) we came back to my place and things got a little more seri­ous than usual. We made it onto the bed, and after some toss­ing and turn­ing, It happened.

It was won­der­ful, mag­i­cal even. All of our emo­tion and our love was con­cen­trated into that one moment, and for a split second we became one person. I know it sounds corny, but that’s hon­estly how I’d felt at the time.

As we lay in bed after, we just looked at each other for a while. Things were dif­fer­ent now; we’d crossed that line and there was no going back. This wasn’t like a one night stand (which I had never had, thank you), or a fling. This was the real deal. As our eyes stared into each other, I asked her if she’d like to move in with me because I wanted noth­ing more than to wake up to those eyes every morning.

She started to cry, punched me lov­ingly on the chest, and called me a ‘sappy idiot.’ I just smiled and said “If you want to call me that, that’s fine. Just say yes.” And you know what? She did. Between her happy sobs, she smiled at me and I knew that I had achieved the one goal I had ever set for myself. I would be with this girl for­ever. I’ve man­aged not to screw every­thing up, and now she’s going to be with me forever.

We slowly fell asleep hold­ing each other, and I cher­ished that moment more than any­thing else in my life.

—

Then I woke up. I was laying in a gurney. I looked around and found that I was alone in the room. I had an I.V. stuck in my arm and to my shock, I found myself in hos­pi­tal clothing.

Suf­fice it to say, I started to panic.

Just then a nurse came in and gasped when she saw me fail­ing around. She ran out of the room, and moments later burst back into the room with a short, Asian man whom I learned was a doctor.

“My my,” he said “Not too often people pull through after an injury like that.”
“I’m sorry, what? An injury like what?” I had stam­mered, now freaked out well beyond any normal scale.
“Your head wound. You may not remem­ber but you had a nasty fall and cracked your head open. Luck­ily some­one called 911, and you were rushed here.”

My mouth went dry. “When was this?” I squeaked.

“Oh about… let me check your charts.” He flipped through the clip board hang­ing from the end of my bed, “about … 37 days ago? So a little over a month?”

A month. I had been uncon­scious for a month. I had been laying in that bed, in a coma, for just over a month. Every­thing I had thought was real wasn’t. I didn’t have a nicer place, a nicer car, or a raise at my job. I hadn’t done sickly cute couple things. I never won any stuffed ani­mals. I had never been to the diner.

I cried then. I cried like I had never cried before nor have i cried like that since. I shook the gurney with my sobs, my insides crash­ing about my chest. My nose ran and I gasped for air. I cried as my world ended.

I never met Kam.

I never did meet her. I went to that same coffee shop every day for months, but never saw her again.

I could deal with having a crappy place, a crappy car, and a crappy job. I could deal with being a loser with no hand-​eye co-​ordination. How could I deal with­out Kam? I loved her.

I still love her.

And I can still feel her when I fall asleep.