10 Minutes: Eddie

I don't even know that much about him. I don't know anything more than what they have told me, and I don't know that I even get all of that. I don't know why he makes me feel this way, or why he's stuck in my head now the way he is. Because it's none of the obvious reasons. He's attractive enough, but there have been others that haven't struck me this way. Others who remind me of my own life, my immediate life, my wonderful life. He's nothing like I've known, and yet that's not the allure either. And the other thing, it's not just him...it's Them. THEY make sense to me. Even with my other favorite coupling, and even with the nice moments between the one that didn't really make sense...they do. And it's that which is stuck in my head, and I name it Eddie only because I can't name it Them and it's not Her either, because she's always been around, playing with my heart, by playing with his heart, or his, or his. No, the new factor is only him. Eddie.

I don't know exactly what it is, but I do have some slight idea, a vague notion. For sure I have the feeling. Not usually disposed to real emotion in such situations, my heart clutched in my chest just as it would in real life when I saw him standing there. My heart ached when there was pain in his. He doesn't remind me of any of my own precious loves, nor even really of any situation I've been in. But nevertheless, when he stands there, I see everything that I love about the male species.

And what a species they are! I can see the fear and the passion and the feeling and the vulnerability and the uncertainty and the certainty, the strength and the flaws and the accessibility. I could reach out to him and reach out to every man I ever have, and every one that I never will be able to, now...and while it is a bit of a shame to know all those opportunities are not for me and not for this, and that it is a missed theoretical chance not just for me but for them, while I can still feel the disappointment for that, I was happy to be in those arms to feel it.

I guess that's perhaps what it is...Eddie isn't to me any reflection of me or my life or my experiences or my situation or my chances or my missed opportunities for things that never will be. But he is the image of what there simply...Is. That indescribable thing that DOES make my heart catch, that DOES make me wish - LONGINGLY - that things could be different, asking why oh why can't it all just have been written differently. I know what the outcome is going to be, unfortunately, I already know. And it's not with him, it's with the other one. I already knew that and I already didn't like that. But now they've introduced Eddie, and I can't bear to watch him go, as I know he is about to. I miss him already.

For all that he was, even in such a short amount of time, I truly loved him.

word count: 550