Oh God! I can’t believe I’m late. I know Tom will wait for me, but he’s come all the way up to Dublin to see me, I could at least be on time. In fairness, I have spent the last hour putting on the perfect clothes and face for him. It’s a far cry from the old days when we took each other as we came. There was no nervousness meeting him in those days either, not like now.
I haven’t seen him in two years, what can I say other than it’s complicated. Even when I was at the other side of the world, I would think about him all the time. I couldn’t email him often, it was too raw.
Life had once been so different. He would wait for me outside my house and we would chat. They are times I treasure. Then there were the computer games and films. Everyday, there was something interesting to look forward to after school. He was my best friend, I told him everything. Of course, these were our awkward teenage years. There were times when I wanted to kiss him, but I was too shy to ask. I think he was too so nothing happened. Much to my shame, I also wondered in my insecurity what my classmates would say if I had a boyfriend in a wheelchair. They’d surely have asked me a host of questions about his disability Spina Bifida. Now I’d tell them to mind their business.
Then I had my first boyfriend and then another, we both just rolled with it. The funny thing is, he got on with them better than I did. So, my feelings for him just got pushed to the side. They were the best days of my life.
Slowly, things changed. Tom became much more confident especially when he left for college. I now had to share him with the world. It was him telling me about his first kiss, his first girlfriend. I never expected it to affect me but it did. Then, I started to dream about him.
He was a large part of the reason why I left. I needed to get away. I had shown up on campus unexpectedly. All he could talk about was his new girlfriend. To make matters worse, we bumped into her and she was gorgeous. I was heartbroken and resolved to push on with my life. Of course, I was always going to see him again.
I quickly close to door of the car and walk into the bar of the hotel. There he is waiting for me at a table in the distance. Briefly, I stop in my tracks. He is immaculately dressed in a suit in his wheelchair and he looks so damn hot with bulging arms. He has been working out and now I feel a tingle, before we even speak.
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