A Romantic Love Story

Love stories sometimes centers around a young woman and an older man, falling desperately and madly in love.

She’s from a faraway place, and misses her family dearly. She clings on to the man, him being the only person she treasures in this exotic and unknown land.

He comes from a loveless marriage and stays with his wife due to obligation to their children. He has never felt this way about anyone before.

They can’t be together.

She came to work, to ensure a better future for her little brothers and sisters. She has to advance. She needs to advance. Better pay is vital.

He came to work, to provide a living for his family. His wife is expecting. Their third.

They can’t not be together.

He is hopelessly in love. He sees her ocean blue eyes in the rain, phantoms her red lips on strangers, hears her voice in the radio, smells her perfume in a bakery, feels her presence in his home…

She can’t think of anything else. Her work unprogressive, her family ungrateful, her life bleak, her emotions chaotic… she thinks of nothing except his whispers of undying love.

In the midst of their unsure love, they decide to elope.

Oh. And live happily ever after.

She waited for a call that never came. Her children were little and playful, asking more of her than she is able to spare. On Saturday, she baked cakes, played with the children, and mended trousers. On Sunday she bundled her second, held onto the little hands of her oldest and drove to church. The priest prayed for her third to be a good birth. Amen. Her children laughed and played in the back seat of her pickup as she drove home. Come Monday, she bought supplies for the week and treated her children to a rare bar of chocolate. She read them to sleep, ‘and they lived happily ever after…’ On Tuesday she went to the bank and asked the clerk the same question she had been asking for the past three weeks, only to be met by an annoyed glare and a short, ‘none, ma’am.’

Her car broke down half way home. She removed her car keys gingerly, took out her phone and dialed the mechanic, only to be greeted by a flat dial tone. She got through the third time and was promised help in thirty minutes.

While waiting for the town mechanic to come, she sat by the side of the road and wept.

They waited for the money that never came. ‘She’s fine,’ the mother assured the father and vice versa. The brothers and sisters asked repetitively where their older playmate had gone but received no answer. ‘We shouldn’t have sent her to the city,’ they heard mother whisper. ‘She wanted to help,’ their father responded from his rickety office chair, marking student’s exercises. ‘But we shouldn’t have-‘ mother argued, chopping the carrots with more malice than they deserve. ‘Do you think…’

‘Sister’s fine,’ the brother was the one who answered this time, not even looking up from his homework.

They reassured each other and kept writing her letters reporting from home whilst waiting for their daughter and sister to return.

They waited for the money that never came.

I got bored. I'm sorry.