When We Met

Chapter 20

"Hey, why aren't you out there having fun?" Dimitri asked as he took a seat next to me in the pavilion.

The Casten family had invited all employees for a company retreat at a luxurious getaway resort on the outskirts of Madrid. Most of the employees had shown up and were now shedding off the exhaustion of work by playing polo at the swimming pool. The warmth of the evening sun was inviting, but I wanted to read a book I had brought with me, so I sought somewhere quiet and got lost in my fantasies. 

"Oh, um, I just wanted to read this book."

"What's it about?"

"Well, it's about this chief who had to leave home to fight in a war.  Back home, his young wife waited for him day and night, hoping he would return; she would place a lantern every night outside so that he could find his way when he came back, and she did this till she grew old-" 

"He never came back, did he?" 

"No," I whispered, "But even on her death bed, she instructed her servant to put the lantern outside every day after she died." 

I reflected on the profound lesson of love the book offered, unaware of a stray tear making its way down my face. Dimitri wiped it away and lifted my face. We had been dating for some months now, and I had never felt so much love and peace in a long time. 

"Do you have your phone here?" I asked, putting the book aside.

"Yeah. Wanna listen to that sunset soundtrack of ours?" I nodded, smiling. 

He took his phone out and played our sunset soundtrack. I leaned on his shoulder and closed my eyes as the melody of the song complemented the atmosphere. Memories of my childhood flashed across my mind; a time when everything was possible and life was a joyous ride. I remembered the time we moved to Rosewood, and I had to leave Brandon, how he said he loved me. I smiled when I remembered the first time I met Ryan and the time we sang over his grave. When we met, I never thought that death was a possibility, I knew it was there, I knew people lost loved ones and people lost lives, but I never thought I would be the one mourning the loss of one who was yet to be my husband. 

Then I remembered the time Frank and Anne met and how he told me that she was almost like a dream. And I remembered how I would sit on my balcony here in Toledo, escaping everything that reminded me of a love lost to the depths of the earth, yet somehow there was so much love in me. I remember picking up my little diary and writing:

"This thing called love. It has done me well, and it has torn me apart. Yet I still have so much of it I don't know what to do. I want to share this beautiful gift with someone, but I'm afraid of what it could do. It makes you feel like you're everything at once and a part of everything around you. Yet it reminds you of your singularity, how alone or lonely you are, a speck in the vast universe."

I remembered meeting Dimitri again and how relieved I was to find someone from home. Someone who reminded me of what I had left behind. A stubborn memory that refuses to leave. I remembered how his eyes spoke words he'd rather not say. How, despite his silent nature, his presence would be as though I was reading a beautiful book filled with mysteries and adventures. 

"Isn't it strange how we meet random people who cease to be random just because of time?" I asked rhetorically, breaking the comfortable silence.

"Yeah, it's amazing."

"Ryan's memorial in this weekend. I'm flying home on Thursday."

"We are flying home on Thursday. "

"I thought the  board meeting was on Friday, so you can't make it till then."

"Boring board meetings are not my thing," Dimitri remarked as we stood up to join the others for dinner.