A fictional interpretation of a song by Lea Michele.
Everyday I get a little bit closer to the resolution.
The streets are slick from fresh rain when I take a seat on the steps outside a church. I should probably go in, but I’m tired of praying. I’ve been praying for him to come back into my life for far too long. It’s time to move on already.
I just can’t stop thinking about the look in his eyes the day we first met. It was like magic. All the cliches of fairytales and romantic comedies came to life. I ran into him on the street, right in front of the steps of this church, and though we were strangers in that moment, I felt like I’d known him my entire life. His brown eyes lit up, and he gave me that half-smile I’ve always found charming on a man, stuck out his hand and said “Hi, I’m Grisham.”
And just like that, the stranger became someone known.
***
The church bells were ringing when we had our first kiss.
It was midnight, and just like Cinderella I was running late and in a place I shouldn’t have been. I should have been on the dinner date I’d been looking forward to all week, but when Grisham called minutes before I was supposed to leave, my plans immediately changed.
A few years had gone by since the day we first met, but the church steps retained their significance for us. Our friendship forever cemented over the coffee he brought me the very next morning where I found him waiting for me on the steps. The church steps would become the one place we let all our walls come down. Everything important took place on these steps.
So when he told me to meet him, I did. Without hesitation.
“What happened?” I asked him, the sequins on my dress casting a constellation of lights on the church walls.
He gave me that half-smile I loved so much, and said, “This.”
And then he kissed me.
***
Everyday I get a little bit closer to the resolution.
Perhaps the commitment scared him. Perhaps the church steps were the only place the walls we’d built for ourselves could ever come down.
We made dinner plans the night after we decided to move in together as a celebration. Attending the open-house had been a joke, a simple, spontaneous decision during date night that led to the biggest decision of our lives. We applied for the space slightly tipsy, and left that night laughing at our boldness.
When the call came, we were both surprised.
“I’m in if you’re in,” he told me.
“I’m in,” I said.
He grinned, "Then we should celebrate tonight."
I arrived at the restaurant early, giddy and restless.
But he never showed.
***
My calls went straight to voicemail. I didn’t hear from him for weeks. I couldn’t reach him anywhere, and all his friends seemed to know something I had yet to learn.
Everyday I get a little closer to the resolution.
I didn’t mean what I thought I meant to him. When the clock struck midnight, and his lips touched mine, it wasn’t a promise. The friendship formed over coffee on the church steps was never built to last.
Now, the church bells ring in my ears as I get up from the steps.
I wipe the mud off the backs of my legs, and move on.
