My Forever Kiss

On Halloween of 2014, I met the man of my dreams. I was in the backyard of my good friend’s house, about to take our kids trick or treating. I had pretty much given up on men and decided to put all my focus on my kids. But then a man carrying a box came into the backyard. He introduced himself to me before even putting the box down and shook my hand. It felt as if my heart skipped a beat and I got chills throughout my body. It was then that I knew I had met the man I had been waiting for.

Never have I been one to go for looks; however, to me he was gorgeous. He was a little shorter than me with short cropped light brown hair and hazel green eyes. He wore a short goatee and mustache that showed hints of gray, which I found amazingly sexy. He was not muscular, slightly overweight rather, but I could tell that he was strong. He wore light blue jeans, a black t-shirt, black sneakers, and a blue denim jacket. I am surprised I remember all of that, because it was the smile that he wore when he shook my hand that almost made me forget my name.

I told my friend, Lisa, that he was cute and asked if he was seeing anyone. Lisa revealed that he is her brother, whom I had never met before. She told me that he just divorced his wife a few months ago and that he had already started seeing a childhood friend of his. He was moving into Lisa’s basement apartment until he could get his life back together. I did not care. He was the most charming and handsome man I had ever met, and he was going to be mine.

I have made a lot of bad choices when choosing men. The father of Gianna, my oldest daughter, left when she was just 6 months old. I could not even get him to pay child support until recently. My next relationship bore another daughter, Ashley, but ended when I caught him cheating, and of course, more child support issues. One guy turned out to be an illegal and disappeared back to his country before being deported. My son Jacob, the youngest, was 3 when I met Lisa’s brother, and until that day, was the only man in my life I would choose.

Meeting him made me feel like a schoolgirl. For the rest of that day all I could think about was him. I do not even remember going trick or treating. That evening I received a friend request on Facebook from Jason. I did not realize who it was at first until I checked his profile. Again, my heart did that thing. I accepted his request without even thinking, just like a schoolgirl.

Immediately after I accepted his friend request, he sent me a message on Facebook Messenger. For the third time that day my heart did that thing and I felt myself smiling. It was one of those uncontrollable smiles like when you smoke your first doobie. My hands started trembling a little as I went to open the app. The message had one simple word, “Hi”.

We spoke on Messenger all night until I fell asleep with my phone in my hand. I learned that he was just as bad as me with relationships. He had just ended his second marriage. Both of his wives had cheated. He was currently seeing a woman he ran into at work who he was friends with when he was three. However, he had just found out that she was married and was undecided on how to proceed. I learned everything I could about him until I woke the next morning with a dead phone in my hand.

Jason became a remarkably close friend over the next few weeks. We spoke quite often. I told him things I never shared with any of my girlfriends. I lived down the road from Lisa’s house. I started to make up excuses to pop over just to see him. Our conversations slowly became flirtatious, but at the same time he was always a gentleman. This made me want our friendship to become even closer.

We never discussed turning this flirtatious friendship into anything more. After about our third week of tiptoeing around whatever this was, I received a text from him while standing in my driveway. He said that he was going to kiss me the next time he saw me. Suddenly, his car rolled up in front of my house. We spoke briefly about something I do not even recall because that is when he did it. He gently pulled my head through his open car window and kissed me. That is when I knew that this friendship was turning into a lifelong bond.

From the moment we kissed I knew I had met the man I had been waiting my whole life for. He was not traditionally handsome by most people’s standards, but to me he was the most handsome man in the world. He had failed relationships, like most people our age. I had met a true gentleman. Unlike any other man I had been with, he made my heart flutter; and still does to this day. After several failed relationships, I finally met the man of my dreams.