Eternal Passion

As the train pulled into LaSalle/Van Buren Station on Monday evening, I gathered my things together. It had been a long day. The days had gotten much longer since Joe and I had split up. As I thought about it yet again, tears sprang to my eyes.

We used to do everything together. It was our destiny to grow old and die as one. He was my whole world!

Then he left.

It was so sudden; he just packed up one day while I was at work. His social media accounts went dark. His family and our friends not only quit answering my phone calls, texts, and emails, but they blocked me altogether. When I went to his warehouse job, it turned out he had quit three days earlier.

I couldn’t find out what had happened to him, no matter how hard I tried. Even the police wouldn’t help me. I filed a missing person’s report and tried to shadow the detectives assigned to the case. But they solved the case while I was at work and all they would tell me was they had located Joe, he was safe, and the case was closed. When I tried to get the case file, Detective St. Clair told me to let it go or I would be arrested.

It was no use. Joe was gone. Moving on was impossible. I was bereft without him. I couldn’t understand it. He meant everything to me. Why would he just go? How could Joe do this to me? I pushed the tears from my eyes and stood up before I started crying in earnest, hurrying to follow my fellow commuters out of the train.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of blue. I turned and saw a beautiful, muscular blonde man with striking chocolate eyes peeking out from under a black Stetson. His gaze met mine. We shared a dazzling glance in a meaningful moment. However, before I could get to the door of the train, it pulled out of the station again. I stared at him through the train window, watching him get smaller and smaller with only one thought in mind.

I have to find him. He is my destiny. 

I spent the next week in a daze. I became consumed with finding him.

People at work noticed something was off. I started making grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in memos that were usually impeccable. I tried to be more careful, but the image of the man on the platform was too tantalizing for me to be distracted from it for long.

His face haunted my every waking moment. I replayed every detail of our brief interlude from the melted chocolate color of his warm gaze to the just-too-long hair that curled adorably over his ears and shirt collar. I knew his stance and which buttons of his shirt he fastened. I saw the pattern in his bolo tie and his belt buckle as clearly as if I owned them myself and I could feel the well-oiled leather of his shiny black boots and belt.

I began to fill my time by guessing his name. I tried to imagine what his voice sounded like and the sound of my name on his lips. Did he own a black leather jacket to go with the belt and boots? Did he frequently dress like a cowboy? Did he own a horse?

My mentor, Carol, dropped by my office on Wednesday as I sat daydreaming. She sat in a chair across the desk without being invited and stared at me for a few uncomfortable moments.

“Is there something you need?” I finally asked her.

“Well, it doesn’t look like you’re on drugs, Crystal,” she answered.

I was shocked. “What? Why would you say that?” I demanded, hurt.

She half-smiled. “That’s one of the grape-vine rumors. Then there’s corporate espionage or head-hunters from a rival firm. Someone has also suggested you’re sleeping with a board member and are no longer worried about getting fired, even that you are possibly pregnant.”

Offended as I was, I had to laugh at this last one. The entire board consisted of men who were at least seventy. “What brought all these rumors on?” I asked her.

Carol held up a couple of sheets of paper. “In yesterday’s memo, you used the wrong instance of ‘there’ and misspelled ‘illegal.’”

I grabbed the pages, horrified. At least six errors of one form or another had been highlighted, and now I looked closely, two more jumped out at me. I blushed when I saw the misspelling Carol had pointed out. “Ill eagle? Really?” I groaned.

She chuckled a moment, then sobered. “So, what is it?” she asked me.

“Every life is a love story and mine hasn’t had a happy ending yet,” I said, sighing.

“Oh, are you still upset over Joe? Sweetie, you’re going to have to let him go. You’ve got a brilliant career ahead of you. Don’t let him mess this up for you, no matter how rotten he was to you.” She swept out of my office before I could say anything else.

Joe? She thought I was stuck on Joe. That was laughable. This man was much better than Joe.