Love works in miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and stretching the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favouring the passions, destroying reason, and in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy.

      ~ Marguerite De Valois

It's been like a roller coaster, she thinks, the way this all has happened.  She had been sitting high at the crest of the hill when she'd spoken to Jim after months of silence, she came tumbling down at breakneck speed when she realized not only that he was busy but who he was busy with.

She's realized lately that there are times when she needs to shut her eyes tightly in order to remember.  Times when she arrives at work early just to run her hand over the phone on his old desk, the one that Ryan took over after he left.  There are times now when she looks at the two of them together, sees them laughing and wonders if he really meant the words he said all those months ago.

No matter what has happened or what hasn't - it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference.

Two hundred and eighty-seven days...

Forty-one weeks....

Six thousand and eight hundred and eighty-eight hours...

She thinks of him.  Still...

When she does she remembers exactly when she decided to settle, exactly when she decided to give up, when she came to believe it was all hopeless anyway.

She glances at her date book and knows that to remember today she doesn't need to write anything more than two simple words. 

It's over.

The thing that worries her is that this might just be the end - of absolutely everything.

What happened tonight is going to change things, whether she wants them to or not.  What she said to Roy is going to cause something to happen - at the very least it will cause some sort of trouble between Jim and Karen. 

She isn't sure how she feels about that.

Part of her wants it to.  Part of her can't stomach watching them together, day after day, week after week, month after month.  But part of her feels like she deserves it for being too slow, for not saying anything sooner, for letting it all pass her by.

As she moves to put her key in the lock she can't stop shaking.  It's not like this is the first time she's seen Roy this way and it's telling.  He hasn't changed at all. 

He's the same.  Still...

It doesn't matter that he'd seemed to have quieted down or tried to be sweet or made some sort of an effort.  In the end the only thing he heard was that Jim kissed her.  Not that she wanted a fresh start.  And definitely not that she'd kissed Jim.

Which is really the point of all this.

She'd kissed Jim - at a time when her reaction should have been pushing him as far away as she could.  At a time when the anticipation of marrying someone she'd been with for so long should have drowned out everything and anything else.  But it hadn't.  In retrospect it was easy to admit it.  There had always been that nagging, lingering feeling that something was not quite right.  She could see clearly now exactly what she'd been doing back then.  She'd been hanging onto Jim for dear life.

Almost literally.

The tears don't come when they should.  She's not mourning the events of the evening.  Her eyes are swimming only as she remembers that day...that night.  

When she had grabbed his hand earlier that day, he'd stayed right there with her.  When she thinks back about that night she's quite sure he would never have left if when he asked her that all important question she'd actually had the courage to open her mouth.

Maybe that's what she needs to start doing.  Open her mouth - say something to someone whose response to her words wouldn't be throwing things like a five year old having a tantrum.  Maybe she needs to say something to someone who has actually evolved since high school.

Someone who might have evolved a bit too much.

As she slips into her sweats and hangs up her work clothes she thinks of his - the way he dresses now.  His suits, his shirts, all buttoned up and serious.  Now he only has time for pranks between sales calls and meetings, only has time to blow off steam when it's an absolute state of emergency.

It was true, nowadays she had to close her eyes to remember but whenever she did it was clear.  He kissed her.  It wasn't her imagination, it really had happened.  And if it was "just a kiss" it didn't explain why he went running when she didn't give him the answer he'd wanted, why he'd pretty much stopped talking to her. 

Why though he was right here he still felt so very far away.

Maybe that's what he was doing - simply trying to keep his distance.   Maybe the only reason he moved on was because she'd kept her mouth shut.  Maybe if she'd just said something no matter how awkward or scary it'd be...different...

Because she knows she's the one who kept quiet far too long.   And she knows when all was said and done she didn't marry Roy. 

The way things ended tonight - though embarrassing and awkward and humiliating she is absolutely celebrating that fact.

She curls up on the couch, pulls an afghan around her, and clicks the TV on.   The sound comforts her, makes her forget for a moment that she's alone.

Maybe this is what she needed.  Maybe this is finally the thing.  Maybe she'd have to finally find her voice, to really say...something.  At the mere thought panic consumes her so she backpedals a bit in her mind. 

She wouldn't have to say everything of course.  Just enough to keep what she suspects will happen from actually happening.

The possibilities swirl in her head - the least of which did not exclude Roy's fist connecting squarely with Jim's unsuspecting face.  A scene like that was something she was desperate to avoid.

At all costs. 

She closes her eyes and thinks of Jim again and as she does she recalls something she should have thought of two hundred and eighty-seven days before.  The first drop on the roller coaster is always the scariest. 

But for all the ups and downs, when it's over you coast right back to where you started.