THE WRONG ONE FOR ME

“You. Are. Mine. No man will ever take you from me.” I stare at him as he says this. It feels like my blood has stopped flowing. I open my mouth to say something and no word comes out of my mouth. My stomach flips and I feel beads of sweat on my forehead despite it being a cold rainy day. 

Those are the words any woman would like to hear. They are words that warm the heart and give you that goofy smile on your face that everyone wonders what you’re smiling heart. But they were words coming from the wrong one. Why is he the wrong one? 

Well, we have known each other for a while; okay not a while, for several years. He knows and gets me, I know and get him. We simply look at each other and we will know something is not right, even when the rest of the world thinks we are okay. I have had moments when I have laughed my heart out when we are among friends and when we got a moment alone, he has asked why I am sad, and yet I have this beautiful dimpled smile on my face. Even when I try to make him believe all is well, he will insist until we talk about it. When I don’t, I can see it in his eyes, the hurt; like I am betraying him by not sharing my burdens with him. 

He is easy to talk to, we talk, and we bear each other’s souls to each other. We have that camaraderie that runs deeper than any of our other friends. The thing I appreciate the most about him, (not all the time though) is his bluntness. He says it as it is. He will set you straight if he has to. He is my go-to when I need to hear the bitter truth. Then there is the jesting, we will joke about anything, freely even before our friends. It’s only a few times when he comes and tells me he is hurt by what I said that I wonder if his age is slipping and I haven’t noticed. 

We are past the stage of being careful around each other. You want to eat your stomach full, nothing is stopping you. I think we have come to appreciate one another for who we are. 

Sometimes we will know what the other is thinking without asking. It must be the eyes. They say they are the windows of the soul and I think we understand that, we stare into each other’s eyes and they seem to tell the whole story. There are times when the rest of the world doesn’t exist and it seems it is just the two of us in it. 

People that have met us for the first time have assumed that we are romantically involved. I don’t know what is meant by the term soul mate, but I know that despite the deep connection we have, he is not mine. So when he told me that he would fight for me, I desperately wanted to believe him, but I knew doing so would only set me up for disappointment. He is the wrong one for me because …