The Best Love Never Had

Wendy called again. This was the third time she called this week. How. Just how did he ever get so lucky. This girl was so sweet. She liked Wharhammer, roll playing and even Larped on occasion. And with her pictures, she assured him were recent, she was the best thing that could ever have happened to him.

He finally found a dating sight that seemed to have people really wanting to commit. Wendy was, as she put it ready to find her knight. Bob waited till the third ring and answered.

“Bobby.”

“Hey you. I can’t talk long, I’ll need to go in to the office in a few but I wanted to see how my hobbit was doing?” hearing the voice on the other end was like drinking cool liquid. He almost missed the Hobbit remark. He knew he was short but he never got as mad with her.

“You know up to the cool comforts of home. It’s been snowing for three days straight.”

“Three, you are so lucky. They say it’s going to snow here but unlike Colorado the snow here is just rain that gave up on love.”

“Ouch.”

“Right?”

They talked for twenty minutes when she realized she was late and said she had to go. Bob went outside to enjoy the dry fluffy snow for the both of them.

The snowy March melted into a week of April rain. He called her and she called him. Skype was out of the question. She didn’t have a decent connection and didn’t want to use her company computer for personal work.

Bob put together a playlist for her, wrote her poems and she would write him fantastic stories and leave him singing messages on his answering machine. Her near encyclopedic memory of old cartoons and 80’s television made spending time with her more fun than he had with anyone.

Two days before she was supposed to come home from Tokyo, they decided to ship her to Nagahama. A smallish town that housed one of her companies bigger clients. It’d be another two weeks. 

Then she had to go to New Zealand. She’d send pictures. She was horrible at taking them. The lens was dirty or motion blurred. But always pictures of where she was at. 

He went to work one day and Stella, his manager, called him into her office.

“Yes, boss?”

“Don’t call me that.” She said.

“Sorry.”

“Jeff tells me you’re in a relationship?”

“Yeah, she’s great.” He slipped out his phone and showed Stella a picture.

“A cutie.”

“I can’t wait to meet her.”

“So you haven’t met in person?”

“No her work keeps sending all over the world.”

“What does she do?”

“She works for a tech firm she trains and coaches people on their product.”

“Impressive.”

“I know I thought too good to be true, but her Japanese is wonderful and clunky.”

“You speak Japanese?”

“No, I watch a fair amount of anime.”

“Ah.” She paused and put a pen she was playing with, down and looked right at him. “I’ve had a few of your coworkers tell me they’re worried for you.”

“That’s nice but I know she might be a sharlitain, but it’s been three months and she hasn’t asked for money.”

And she hadn’t until she lost her plain ticket and was too embarrassed to tell the company. She needed to be with her direct superior it was going to be 5thousand.

He almost did. But they’d never met and never even skyped. 

The heat of summer dropped into a blizzard jumped up to the 80’s then sub zero and winter arrived. It was snowing. As time passed his attempts to get in touch with her slowly spread out and then stopped. But today the start of the third day of snow he made a valiant trek to the market to get a blue rose like the ones she would send him.  Made it home made a romantic dinner. Set the table for two, went to his Spotify account and pulled up the play list he sent her and sat down to a nice dinner. 

She’d been false the whole time. He in his late thirties had never had a serious relationship and no one made him feel that way. He wasn’t mad. Dissapointed sure but not mad. She’d given him something that he’d always treasure. He fell in love. So hard it took two months to stop crying. But today he knew that the feelings he had with her were real. Falsly based but real. He poured a glass of sparkling cider and celebrated some of the best memories a guy could ever have.