Dating My WIP

Our eyes met. His sparkled bright and drew me in. I was intrigued. As he crossed the crowded room towards me, my heart pitter-pattered and the questions began to form. He was a puzzle, a mystery, an enigma. I wanted...I needed to know everything about him.

"Dinner?" he asked, and I nodded as I licked my dry lips. The anticipation had stolen my voice. He took my hand and led me to a table for two where we washed down forgettable food with tasteless wine.

Our conversation was slow, awkward at first. But with each question he answered more grew, spreading like wildfire. Before the evening ended, we had planned a second date. And from that night came more dinners followed by late night talks. Our conversations grew longer, our affection for each other grew until I could no longer hold it in.

A feverish passion flew through my fingers and across my keyboard. Each word brought us closer. I thought of him every waking hour and dreamt of him every night. When we couldn't be together, I lived in a fog, walking through the mundane tasks of my life while thinking of only him. I anticipated our moments together, forgoing food and sleep. I longed to be with him. I needed to be with him. He was all I wanted.

I thought, This is it. He could be the one. The one I've always dreamt of, planned for. The one who will take me places I've never even imagined. And our relationship grew, marked by a rapidly growing word count.

And then came the snag.

Something came along and distracted me. Suddenly he wasn't so exciting anymore. I stopped thinking about him as much. I stopped wondering about him. Stopped dreaming about him. Stopped caring. Suddenly I'd rather play Facebook games than spend time with him. Our relationship grew stale and cold. The word count stopped.

And then one day a song came on the radio that reminded me of him. Suddenly I couldn't stop thinking about him again. I wanted to...I needed to be with him. The word count began to rise, slowly at first but increasing at a steady pace.

Just when I thought we're back on track, that he IS the one, a light switch flipped. I began to notice things...the pimples on his chin, his large nose, his crooked teeth. His jokes weren't so funny anymore. He chewed with his mouth open, he never opened the door for me, and all he wanted to talk about is himself.

What did I see in him? Why did I think he was so great?

I began to notice others, with eyes that sparkled much brighter than his. I am drawn to them. I longed for the the mystery once more. But deep in the night a voice whispers to me. Press on. See this through. Don't give up.

So I put away all thoughts of the other sparkling eyes, and continued to date only him. It wasn't easy. Some nights we had dinners where we barely spoke and refused to look at each other. Some nights, I stood him up so I could curl up with my Kindle and bemoan the fact that our relationship will never be as good as Veronica Roth's Divergent.

Sometimes we did talk, slow and stilted. And then there are the nights, the great nights, where we talked all night long, rediscovering each other. The passion and the heat flowed again, sometimes lasting for days.

One day, I stopped and looked back for a moment. I saw the ups, the downs, the adversity we'd overcome. A surge of passion swept through me, driving me forward. The finish line was in sight. Once again, he consumed me, not with the exciting flame of a sparkler like in the beginning, but the more steady burn of a candle prepared to carry on through the last drop of wax.

And then came the dinner where he pulled out the tiny velvet black box. My heart fluttered as he dropped to one knee before me. I typed those final words and pressed print on my first draft as he slipped the gold band onto my finger.

I held up my hand, beaming with excitement and pride before spreading my joyous news to everyone I know. Then I danced around the room several times, nearly falling. As I pressed my hand to the table to catch myself, I felt the warmth of my freshly printed pages. I noticed the contrast of the gold ring to the crisp white...

And I knew that now the real work began.

But that is another post.

Happy Writing!