He was that man. The one you think of when you first kiss a guy. The one you feel when said guy touches you. The one whose voice you can no longer recall but whose presence you still feel around you, close to you. The one you see in every man that follows.

There is his hair. There is his shirt and pants. There are his shoulders. That, oh my, that is his smile. And you fall for him all over again, only in another man.

These other men, after a while, they realize you don’t really see them. The smarter ones know this immediately, know they will never fit the mold that is him so they leave even before it begins.

So you are alone, wondering why you love someone who is as distant from your life as the stars, wondering why after all this time your heart still beats only for him, wondering if love truly exists, if it is possible for a woman to love a man who loves her too.

At times like this, it seems to you that love is more like a house with all its doors shut.

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He was walking towards the lift lobby, his laptop bag hanging off his shoulder, weary from another long work week but not looking forward to another lonely weekend either.

His phone started buzzing in his pocket. He fished it out and looked at the number in mild surprise.

He knew her, from a long time ago, a young girl with a sweet smile who had worked for them for a few months.

He remembered her being precocious and interesting and so much younger than him.

“Hello?”

“Hi, I’m sorry.” She sounded as if she was crying, sobbing really hard and gasping.  “I’m so sorry, I don’t know who else to call, I don’t have anyone.”

“What’s wrong?” His protective instincts kicking in, remembering her face and how intensely sad she sometimes seemed to be, how he used to try to make her smile more.

Did he like her? He could not even remember. Maybe he had. Maybe he had flirted a bit. But he was lonely and in his thirties and she was young and sweet and he had never been inappropriate in any outright physical manner – of that he was sure.

“I’m so sorry…I just couldn't take it anymore so I did it and now…”

She sounded worse, her voice more faint. Then the worst thought struck his mind – she had tried to kill herself.

“Where are you?” He asked firmly, strongly, so unlike himself.

“At home-“ Then she hung up or the line got cut but he was already sprinting back to the office.

“Personnel records,” He barked at one of the secretaries.

“2007, 2007” He mumbled to himself, leafing through the folders, his fingers jumping. Maybe this was it, he could not help thinking. His whole life filled with inaction and letting opportunities pass by and wondering what could have been, all the doing with no meaning and saying with no intention and now he was finally acting, doing, caring.
 

He found her address and ran out of the door, leaving the secretaries to stand around wondering why their usually passive boss was in such a state.

When he got to her apartment door, he didn’t even bother knocking, he slammed his shoulder against the door twice before the lock gave way.

He barged in, calling out her name and heard no response. He literally felt his heart in his throat. Not this, Not this time, that was all he kept thinking. He did not want to be too late this time, not when someone’s life was at stake, not when it was more than a job or a woman you loved.

He could almost feel the tears at the back of his throat as he walked around her apartment, feeling lost all over again and then he saw her slumped on the kitchen floor. There was blood everywhere but not as much as he expected and as he knelt down and grabbed her wrists, he realized she was still breathing and that the slashes on her wrists had not reached her arteries.

“It’ll be fine, It’s not that deep.” He told her, thinking he could cry right then in gratitude and relief. He had saved her. He would save her.

He had never felt so alive, so intensely in touch with his own emotions, as if every feeling he had ever felt about anything and anybody, all that he had buried so deep within himself was now right beneath his skin, coursing through him.

He held her up to the sink, made her run her hands under the water and then sat her down and hurriedly picked up a cloth, ripped it in half and wrapped her wrists in them.

The entire time she kept mumbling, dazedly “I can't be alone anymore, I can't be alone anymore.”

He tried not to think about the agony behind those words, how it resounded with his own emptiness. He still had to get her to the hospital. He put one arm around her, helping her up, and then cupped her face in his free hand, tilting it towards his own, “You’ll be okay, everything willl be okay, I’m going to get you to the hospital, I’ll take care of you.”

She nodded, numbly, tears still running down her face.

Then he held onto her and led her out of the door.

He did not notice the last thing she had written on a piece of paper that lay on the floor, right before she had slashed her wrists and called him - I will make him love me.