The trouble with love...

Natalie Laker

Charlie remembers the first time he saw Natalie. It was honestly one of the worst days of his life. He was in New York for a work assignment and his boss here wasn't making the job easier for him. His department back in Texas had sent him to New York to work on a new project with their sister branch.

The people here were always in a hurry and always had a stick shoved so far up their asses, he could see it stick out their throats as they yelled at him. He missed home more than ever and that day he had just walked out of a stressful meeting. Granted, he didn't dress the part of grouchy office man, but he tried to. He wore a blazer!

Sitting on the subway, he watched the pretty girl at the front of the car fidget and check her watch every four minutes. When the conductor announced they had technical difficulties and would be delayed, her face grew more anxious. Once the train stopped at the station she rushed out and Charlie rushed after her. Why? He didn't know. He had caught up to her just in time to see her shout 'No!' at the departing train, before slumping on a bench next to the wall and crying.

It really hurt him to see her so upset. Cautiously, he walked over and crouched down in front of her and asked if she was okay. She lifted her head and suddenly jerked away from him. Maybe he was a bit too close for comfort.

Up close, her beauty hit him head-on. Her deep, doe brown eyes were glassy from the tears, a few stray curly hairs hung around her face, her bun sat a curly, messy, black ball atop her head with random strand s of hair sticking out here and there from all the running she did. She wore a dark green button-up shirt and white jeans, both of which had a large, brown stain on the front. Coffee maybe? And on her small dainty feet were a pair of nude flats. She was very different from the girls back in Blue Lake, but he liked it.

At first she seemed a little hostile towards him, probably wary of this stranger asking about her personal problems, and tried to walk away. Charlie said the first thing on his mind that would get her to stay, which happened to be a flyer with a picture of coffee and pancakes laying on the floor next to her.

Eventually, she agreed to go out with him and Charlie was over the moon. They soon started dating and Charlie fell more in love with Natalie every day. He fell in love with her smile and the way her nose would scrunch up when she laughed. He fell in love with her mind, her ambition, her goals. He fell in love with how compassionate she was and how sassy she got when she was annoyed or angry. He fell in love with the way her hair would bounce when she wore it loose around the house and the way her eyes turned golden, honey in the sunlight.

He fell in love with the smile lines around her mouth and the stretch marks on her thighs. He fell in love with the wide curve of her thighs, the valleys and peaks of her legs and the curve of her breast. He fell in love with the dark spots speckled over her cheeks when she didn't wear makeup and her beautiful coffee, brown skin. He fell in love with her voice, her laugh, the weird sounds she would randomly make, the way her toes would curl when her feet got cold and how she always smelled like honey. He just fell in love with all of her. When they had just moved in together, he started asking people around him about marriage. What it takes to make marriage work, what it's like to be married, how you know you're ready for marriage. All those types of questions.

He asked his father, who had been married to his mother for 38 long years, what it takes to make marriage work. "Son," his gravelly voice said over the phone, "a marriage doesn't work just because you love each other. It is important that you love each other, but sadly love doesn't make it work. What makes it work is understanding, and patience and communication because, without those three things, nothing will work." His dad then asked if he was thinking of marrying Natalie, but Charlie just avoided the questions.

He asked his brother, David, what it's like to be married and his response was that it was like having a second person living in your mind. "You can't do anything without thinking about your wife," he explained, "you go to work thinking you're there to make a living for her, you go grocery shopping debating what kind of milk does she like, you wake up and get dressed for her. Sometimes it sucks and you want to do things for yourself, but you can't because it's not just 'you' anymore. It's 'us'. You're not just a single person. You might be alone in the room, but you are representing both of you.

Sometimes it's great. Thinking of someone else fills you with a kind of purpose that you didn't have before. Honestly, you'll need to be married to know." David left him with a lot of thoughts that day and being around Natalie just gave him more.

One odd day, his grandpa John called him and Charlie asked him how he knew he was ready for marriage? "Well boy, honestly I can't tell you the exact moment I knew I was ready to get married to your grandma, but what I can tell you is that you'll know you're ready for marriage when you look at that girl and you can't imagine waking up without her in your life. That's when you'll know," he said.

They all gave him a great answer, but he still wasn't sure marriage was the right move. In the end, it was Natalie that changed his mind. They were jogging together and found a lost, little girl crying. It was seeing her comfort the little girl that made him realise he wanted that with her. He wanted kids and dogs and marriage with her. He wanted forever with her.

So he bought a ring and waited for the right moment to present itself, but it never did. Charlie just hopped that this weekend gave him the perfect moment he's been praying for.