“I’m in love!”

At Kelly’s announcement, both of her officemates share a glance and grin.

Lane is the first to bite. “Who is he this time?”

Kelly smiles, the dimple appears at the corner of her mouth, and her hazel eyes sparkle. “I don’t know his name, but all this week he’s been on the same train as me. He gets off at the Pentagon station.”

“Temporary transfer,” Megan says.

Kelly’s smile falters. “Don’t say that. He could be the one.”

“Oh, hon, they’re all the one until they aren’t,” Lane says.

“That’s why it’s important to seize the day,” Kelly says, her smile once again firmly in place.

“I guess that’s one way to look at it,” Lane says. “But maybe you should go one week without being in love.”

Kelly plops on her chair and shakes her head. “Being in love is like being on a roller coaster. I feel alive. Even on the down bits. Giving up being in love would be like giving up on rainbows and unicorns.”

Megan suddenly feels envious of Kelly’s infectious romantic optimism even if she doesn’t understand the involvement of unicorns. What would it be like to be infatuated again? To have those butterflies whenever Mike appeared? To flirt? To think he hung the moon rather than the all-encompassing heartache of losing Jess? She glances at the picture of the three of them. No, even with the sadness and fatigue and loss, the accumulated shared years of love and living could never be swapped for a burst of infatuation. She knows first hand that life contributes enough peaks and valleys without turning love into one.

 

end 4/11/2017

S. Darlington