The Week With Heather

I get off the airplane and wait about 15 minutes, a bit panicked, realizing just how screwed I am if for some reason she doesn’t come, but then she walks in and I recognize her immediately, even though seeing her is a completely different experience. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but seeing someone in person must be worth a thousand pictures. She’s actually prettier than I expected, more on par with her best pictures than her less-flattering ones, whereas I was expecting the opposite – you don’t really picture a girl as attractive as Heather when you’re imagining ones that meet boys from the internet. Anyway, after she infamously goes to the bathroom upon seeing me, she comes back and I pick up my baggage and we head out and the whole thing feels more like I’m being picked up at the airport by Uncle Fred than my online girlfriend of a year, but that’s good because it means it’s more relaxed than awkward.
 
We don’t really talk that much for a relationship that’s been based 90% on talking non-stop for a year, probably because I’m too distracted wondering if she’s disappointed by my looks or personality – normally I wouldn’t really worry over it, but there’s something bothersome about someone being disappointed in you that makes it worse. I pitifully search for reassurance the whole trip, asking how she thinks things are going constantly and begging for return compliments as I truthfully tell her she’s prettier in person. She doesn’t reassure me for the most part.
 
The week passes by and we get a little more comfortable with each other, though then things seem to regress a little, and I perceive that she’s becoming more anxious and distant. We’re lying in bed and I notice that she’s starting to bite her fingernails non-stop, which she hasn’t been doing, and I ignorantly pull her arms down and command her to tell me what’s bothering her and she fights the urge to say you and tells me no, that nothing is. This continues for a few nights, as I unknowingly try to comfort her from the anxieties I gave her, while she’s empowered and humored by my stupidity. I tell her I love her and she says she loves me too, and I tell her this is the best week of my life and she lies and says hers too, and suddenly it’s the last night before I have to go.
 
We go to the airport the next day, as she sleeps by me while I run my fingers through her hair on the way there, and I can’t shake the feeling that this is the last time I’m ever going to see her. A few minutes later we’re there, standing in front of the security check-in, and she hugs me spontaneously – I think it’s the first time she’s actually initiated contact with me since I’ve been there, so it surprises me. The feeling that this is an ending and not a beginning just gets stronger for me, but I try to ignore it and tell her that I’ll talk to her online tonight and she sorta nods unconvincingly. She then meanders to the bathroom, and I’m standing there wondering if that was supposed to be my goodbye hug and assuming it was I stumble towards security and start to go through check-in. I’m finishing up when I look back and see her waving goodbye and I’m suddenly very aware that when I turn my head I’m not going to see her again, at least not for a long time, and I think about how dramatic I’m making the whole situation, like it’s a cheesy Lifetime movie. So, unaware of just how accurate my premonitions of this being the end are, and just how much my own actions have assured that they are, I take one final look, and turn my head and walk to my terminal.
 
What I didn’t realize was that that moment wasn’t the last time I would ever see her – that time had already passed. The last time I saw her was the Wednesday prior and from every moment after that everything was forever changed. I’d carelessly lost a part of her that I could never get back and that I would never see again. That I won’t see again. And, now, these vague ramblings, this, this is the end of the story of Heather and Matt.