Where Love Finds You (The Unspoken Series)

To: 1224

For: Everything

Nine years ago, on a quaint corner of town, I met my husband and hadn’t seen him since. Everyone said to move on, I’d never see him again, but I couldn’t. If I did, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

“Did you get that?” A tall, blue-eyed man said. 

“I’m sorry. You would like a soy latte?” I glanced around. Every day I glanced around, hoping he would walk through the door and into my heart. 

“Yes, please.”

Another day, another normal day of life without him. 

“There you go again,” Dee, my dearest employee and most eccentric friend, said as she handed the man his latte. “Come on, Ella. Thinking about Mr. Right again, are we? I say this in love, but really, you have to realize that this is ridiculous.”

I leaned against the counter and surveyed the happy couples in the coffee shop, some rings, some bare fingers, all smiles. “I’m getting older Dee. Nearing thirty. Being single isn’t what I had in mind for my twenties, much less my thirties.”

“Look at you.” She waved her hand in front of me. “You own your own successful coffee shop without a college degree, you are beautiful inside and out, and you have accomplished more in life than most people I’ve ever met, regardless of age. You are quite the catch if you ask me, and do you know how many men walk through this door and give you that look? It’s not like you have no options.”

“I know.” I doodled on the notepad in front of me. “All of this, the coffee shop, the stuff I do which really isn’t as special as you seem to think, it’s not something I take for granted at all. I know there are men who have been interested, but they aren’t him. I have to wait for him as long as it takes.”

“You, my friend, are about as idealistic as it gets. What if this guy is married now?”

“He can’t be.”

“You really believe in soul-mates, huh?”

“Not really. I just believe that he is the one for me and if he is married to someone else now, well, I can’t get married to someone else until I know that for sure.”

After the last happy couple left
Chances
, my little coffee shop, I cleaned up and turned the lights down. Another day over and a new one to look forward to. I locked the door and a blur of white, carried by the wind, landed near my feet. There, on the crumpled receipt, one person’s treasure became someone else’s trash. Just like it happened for me.

I picked up the receipt and looked for a phone number, but saw only memories. Soft, flowing strands of ink curled into my phone number.
My name is Ella. Call me sometime? 610-555-2949
. All those years I told myself he couldn’t have found the receipt, someone else picked it up and threw it away, but sometimes I doubted myself and the years of waiting. I started to believe I was as crazy as everyone else thought. Perhaps he got the receipt, threw it in the trash himself, and laughed with his friends about girl number five-hundred and eighty who tried to become his girlfriend.

Eighteen. Only eighteen at the time.

I walked away from the shop and looked into the eyes of others as they passed me. So many people, so many chances to find love, why did I have to believe in only one person?

My phone rang.

I hit silent without pulling the phone from my purse, then sat on a bench overlooking a small park in the middle of the city. The trees caressed the air with their fingers, as I brushed my hair from my eyes and considered giving another man a chance. 

“You’ll grow out of it,” Mom said.

“Once you hit thirty,” Derek, my brother, said, “still single, you’ll regret all of this nonsense,”

Only one person believed in me. My dear friend Sarah. Best friends since elementary school. We used to dress up and pretend to get married to our stuffed animals. She is the complete opposite of me in every way, but the one thing we always had in common is our love for love. We wanted to find love, stay in love, and evolve with love, and we’d wait forever to find the one person who would make that journey the best adventure it could possibly be.

When I finally walked up the steps to my apartment a soft melody interrupted my typical thoughts. I followed the tune and saw an open window. Second floor, beautiful historic apartment building with white curtains blowing in the summer breeze. The piano melody matched the tempo of my life. Subdued, but dramatic. The curtains swayed with the song.

White draping fabric, like the dress I longed to wear. Yes, there were times I considered that years of waiting could eventually escort me down the aisle to a life of singleness.

I considered it. Many times. 

The piano notes resonated with me again. Deeper, still soft and slow. I closed my eyes and imagined my violin in my arms, moving with me, with the piano across the street.

Back and forth, back and forth.

I stood up and opened the door to my apartment building. It’s time, I thought. I need to consider moving on from the man I may never know.

My fingers always knew where to go on the piano. It’s like they were connected to my heart when my mind couldn’t wrap around what I felt. I’m not one of those guys. I don’t sit around and process my thoughts all day long, analyzing every thing that goes in and out. Don’t get me wrong, I analyze life around me, just not my own life. It’s one of those things where I just don’t want to know. Okay, who am I kidding? Maybe I do think a little too much, but there’s something about the piano that helped me process my thoughts in a more peaceful way.

So, I’d sit down in front of those keys and let my fingers tell me what I didn’t want to know. On that humid summer night, windows open, cross-breeze inspiring me to play, I sat down in the dining room of our apartment. In that little nook by the window, my piano waited for me, and every day I faithfully came and sat down for a little while. Today, I stared at the keys for a few minutes, then closed my eyes and let it come.

Sometimes I’d find lyrics, other times not. Tonight I couldn’t find words, just knew I was lonely and tired of it. 

“Matt,” Gavin said from the other room. “What’s with the depressing song, man?”

“It’s where I’m at right now.” My fingers continued to graze the keys, finding their place on the piano and my life. “Just where I’m at.”

“Well, I hope it’s not where you’re going.”

I laughed under my breath and switched the pace to
Lean on Me
. “Better?”

“Getting there. At least this song has a little hope somewhere in there.” Gavin appeared beside the piano and sang with me.

We finished messing around and Gavin turned back into counselor. “Seriously, Matt, you really need to stop dwelling in your mind and live a little. You have so much going for you. Great life, great business, a beautiful girlfriend who wants to marry you tomorrow. What more could you ask for?”

“Yeah. It’s just that all my ducks aren’t in a neat line. They are running around in circles chasing their feathers.”

He hit my back and walked away, then said from the bathroom, “Don’t think about life more than you live it. Be content already.”

“Content?” I entered the bathroom as Gavin swished some Crest around in his mouth. “You’re thirty-one now. Let’s say you find a girl tomorrow, get married in the next year, then start having kids in two years, you will be in your forties with young kids, and that’s not counting some good old time with just you and the lady.”

“Matt. Stop thinking so much and just live. You’re missing out on right now because you’re too busy thinking about tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” I walked away and stood in the hallway, looking around the bedroom I spent the last five years in. “It’s just this empty bed.”

Gavin jumped onto the flimsy mattress. “Hey, I’ll sleep in here if you’re lonely.”

“Get up, man.”

He blew me a kiss and huddled under the covers.

“Seriously. You always find a way to be annoying when I am the most annoyed at you being annoying.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Gavin’s grin lit up the room. “Lighten up, Matt. Just lighten up, take a deep breath, and realize that everything will happen when it’s meant to.”

“Do you ever wonder ‘what if?’”

“No, but I remember the last time you talked about it.”