Vignette:..Do Us Part

hea can’t help but think about how this all started.

When she first met him, he proved to be the most awful boss in existence. She needed the job anyway, so she kept up the act. When they bumped into each other again at her friend’s coffee shop and ended up at each other’s throats before being thrown out, she had made up her mind: she was going to quit after the stockholder’s meeting.

The world had different plans, though. Something in the airline food made her throw up, and she had to do it in front of him. When she heard his worry-filled voice on the other side of the bathroom door, something clicked. Perhaps he was a decent person with manners after all. The troubled stares she got from him only helped reinforce that. They looked like puppy eyes.

The stockholder’s meeting was uneventful; the thoughts in her head told a different story. She had about the same amount of alcohol in her body as him when she carried his body to his hotel room; he was an awful lightweight, even when his body said otherwise. She woke up the next morning to the sight of his puppy eyes staring at her, and yet they both agreed to call what happened a mistake. She wasn’t sure if she meant those words, though.

Work became a minefield; she tried to keep to her word, and from the looks of things, he was trying his best to as well. Despite her cautiousness, they just kept on circling closer and closer with each interaction, be it intentional or accidental. On one starry night, they decided to give dating a shot, albeit in secret. Office dating was a big risk to take, after all. The plan fell through relatively quickly, but not in the way she expected; her friends now pestered her for a ride up the hierarchy, and his friends pestered him as well. Everywhere she looked, people were looking back with an odd curiosity in their eyes.

When she saw those puppy eyes shed tears into her coat and felt his strong frame collapse into her arms at his grandmother’s funeral, she could only hold him tightly as she tried her best to support him. When the car accident happened, she woke up to the sight of his puffy eyes, the tear stains on her collar, and the firm grasp of his hand on hers. The great big bear hug he gave her as she stepped out of the hospital gave her a strange warmth in her body and an odd thought she had only felt with him.

She still has so much to repay him for. As she catches a glimpse of the ring in his hand, she thinks:

I’m too lucky.