Weekend after weekend, she’d end up at the bar and so would I, because by this point, I knew she’d be there and it had become a game to me. There had to come a time she’d agree to a date, to let me buy her a drink, or to even sit down and talk to me. She wouldn’t keep coming back each weekend, especially knowing I’d be there if she wasn’t interested. My perseverance proved accurate and after a month, I scored a date.
There was a part of me that believed she kept returning to the bar because I was meant to meet her. But even I knew that was bullshit. Fate isn’t real, because if it were, I’d have found Nora already. After meeting Bridgitte, I swore I’d give up, that I’d stop looking, but even I knew I was lying. Bridgitte became a distraction that turned into more.
I proposed a couple of months ago and she was over the moon, but I also felt like she wanted it more than I did. She became consumed with getting engaged and after a while, I gave her what she wanted, but I often wonder if it even mattered who it was that proposed to her. If it was the idea of getting married she was so enthralled with, yet I have no right to criticize her methods. The horrible part of it all is, while she was thrilled, I was thinking about Nora the entire time. I was down on one knee, looking up at Bridgitte wishing she were Nora, but it’s been too long to wait anymore.
I tried to find her. Searching every Nora in the greater Boston area, but with only a first name and nothing more to go on, it proved quite difficult. Fucking impossible, actually. And in my insane obsession to find her, I found myself traveling to the places she longed to visit. All of it fueled by the false hope that I would just happen upon her, like fate or destiny or some ridiculous string of amazing luck. I spent two weeks at the Great Barrier Reef the summer after I met Nora, staying in hostels and learning to scuba dive, and with each trip out to the reef, I begged for her to be on my boat. Obviously it never happened. But that didn’t stop me from spending a week scouring cafes in Amsterdam the year I graduated from college. I’d drink coffee and eat stroopwafels waiting for her to walk by, to stroll through a door or to notice me from across the street. Yet, I found nothing. You’d think I’d have given up, but no. I made it to China and then to London, all with no luck. They were all entirely pointless trips, but somehow completely necessary. No one knows why I chose those locations or why I insisted I go, but in the end, I knew.
It all came back to Nora. It always comes back to Nora.
Bridgitte knows about Nora, but she doesn’t know the depths of my obsession. No one does and no one ever will. The fact that I’m obsessed with a girl I spent twelve hours with one August night, is pathetic and sad, even more so now that I’m getting married. Bridgitte thinks it was a crush, just a random blip on my radar like all the other girls that came before her, and I want it to stay that way. She doesn’t need to know, because in the end I’m never going to find Nora.
My family still lives in San Diego, as does my best friend, Matt, and when I visit, I go to the beach, to the exact spot where I fell in love with Nora. I leave a note at the lifeguard tower in hopes that one day she too will return and find it. It’s so fucking ridiculous, and while Matt doesn’t know the full extent of what continues to consume my life, he knows enough to mock me every chance he gets.
It is stupid and I know it, but I still do it.
Twelve years later.
I’m leaving for San Diego in a few hours and Bridgitte stirs beside me. That explains why she’s still home. She’s waiting until I leave before she heads to the office. She wants to say goodbye. She’s good like that, thoughtful and kind and while I try to be, I’m anything but.
“Good morning,” she mutters, her voice hoarse with sleep. She’s the kind of girl who wakes up looking like she stepped out of a magazine. Flawless skin, shiny blonde hair and blue eyes the color of the ocean—a beach beauty trapped in the city. She is a polar opposite of Nora and maybe that’s how I ended up with her.
I sound callous and cold, but it isn’t that way. I do love Bridgitte, but in my life I’ve found that while you can love many people, there is just one who holds your heart, one who owns a piece of you.
“Good morning,” I answer back, slipping from the bed before she has a chance to persuade me to stay. “My flight leaves soon. Gotta get in the shower.”
“I can come with you,” she says. She’s propped up on her elbow with her blonde hair swept over one shoulder as she smiles sweetly.
Bridgitte thinks I’m going to San Diego for work and it’s not entirely a lie. I do have to meet with a few clients regarding an acquisition that occurred last month, but it’s mostly because of the anniversary. I left that part out when I told her I was traveling.
How would I even approach that to begin with? By the way, I’m going to San Diego so I can leave a note on a lifeguard tower near where I fell in love with a random girl who I banged on the beach. I’m still currently obsessed with finding her, but no worries, I still wanna marry you. Something tells me that would go over like a fucking lead balloon.
“Thanks, baby, but it’s going to be boring. I have a few meetings, have lunch with my parents, dinner with Matt. You know, the usual,” I say, casually blowing off her offer.
“When do you get home again?” she asks and this time I can see the disappointment in her eyes.
“Thursday, only gone two days. I think my flight gets in early, like around noon.” She isn’t appeased by the two days gone so I add, “How about the next time I travel you join me?” I smirk at her before walking over and kissing her on the lips while she lies back on the bed.
“Okay,” she says and just like that, things are right in our world.
Five hours later I’m in San Diego and Matt is texting me that he’s here to pick me up. I step outside and flag him down as he coasts to a stop along the curb. I’m sure he’s been circling the airport for the last hour rather than park. It’s just what he does and I can’t complain. He picks me up every time I need him to.
“Hey man,” he says as I climb into the passenger’s side.
“Hey. Thanks for picking me up.”
We talk for a bit about his family and what he’s been up to, not that any of it is new information. We text pretty regularly and he was just in Chicago a few weeks ago for work, too.
“So, you have your letter?” Matt asks, a stupid fucking grin on his face. He’s making fun of me. He damn well knows I don’t write a letter.
“There’s no fucking letter, you ass clown. And if you’re going to give me shit, you can drop me off here.”
Matt laughs and shakes his head. “Sorry, you know I’m just fucking with you.”
“This is it though,” I tell him and he quickly turns to look at me, a confused expression on his face.
“What do you mean?”
I let out a long sigh because while I’ve been telling myself this for a while, I haven’t admitted it out loud. Matt would be the only person I would tell anyway, so saying it now makes it more real.
“I’m done. I told myself as soon as Bridgitte and I were engaged, I’d stop looking for Nora. I can’t keep this up. It’s been twelve fucking years of nothing and every year I show up at the beach, leave my name and number at the tower and go home. It’s time to move on.”