They will have a bedroom with red walls and deep blue sheets, and the last thing they will do every night before falling asleep is to laugh at a private joke only they would understand. 

            When he looks at her, he sees faint possibilities and a thousand reasons why things should not have worked.  When she looks at him, she thinks of peripheral vision and all the things she could have missed. 

            They will go see bad movies at the cheap theater on Thursday nights, and they put too much salt on their popcorn and fight over who is abusing their soda privileges.  He won’t be able to resist leaning over and cracking jokes in the middle of the movie, because his favorite sound in the world is the sound of her laughter. 

            He will remember every yogurt lid and inside joke, every awkward moment and intimate look.  He will remember every time she unintentionally broke his heart.  She will remember every time he cheered her up after fighting with another man, how he’d grin and tell her ways to make things right again.  Hindsight will allow her to see all the times those clever little smirks never reached his eyes. 

            He didn’t fall in love with her the first time they met.  It was the third, when he took her to lunch, and they spent the whole of their time together planning their very first elaborate prank on their coworkers.  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and sighed, because it was just his luck that he’d get hung up on a completely unattainable woman. 

            It takes an out of state transfer for her to see him—really see him—for the first time.  They’ve been friends for five years, and it takes all of those five years for her to get the fact that she looks forward to seeing him at the office more than she looks forward to seeing the man she supposedly loves so much.  But all of a sudden (or so it seems), he’s gone, and she’s left standing alone in a dark office wondering if she wants to laugh because there he is or cry because there he goes.. 

            It seems like once they manage the gargantuan task of getting their acts together, everything seems to fall into place.  One their first date, they eat Chinese food, and then take a walk through the park in the center of town.  They sit on swings and talk about what was, they talk about mistakes and misunderstandings.   They hold hands on their way back to the car, then on the drive home, and still when he walks her to the door.  They don’t kiss, because there are already too many regrets lingering on their lips for one night.  But they hug, and he breathes her in all at once, and the scent of tangerines follows him home. 

            The next day, they have their second date.  They play mini-golf, and they make a pact to never talk about what was ever again.  Then she makes him dinner in her one kitchen, and they open a bottle of wine.  He toasts to what is, and she toasts to what will be, then they make out like teenagers on her couch, because in the end, Sandra Bullock or no, 28 Days is kind of boring. 

            Amazingly enough, he will think as they make love for the first time, she tastes exactly how she smells.    

            She will see the potential of their future together when she closes her eyes.  Maybe someday they’ll have red walls and blue sheets.  Maybe their future is one of tangerine kisses and burnt lasagna dinners.  She will curl in closer while he sleeps, press a kiss to the smooth skin of his bare shoulder, and she’ll go to sleep with a smile on her face, because she will have discovered that faith in herself that he found in her the first day they met.