The Man I Think I Know

by Mike Gayle

And so I keep quiet and she keeps quiet too, until we use up all the quiet in the room so that finally one of us has to say something.

She hates herself for being hard on me. She thinks that somehow she’s letting the side down. She thinks that somehow she’s letting down the version of her that first fell in love with me. The version who, two and a half years earlier, when I’d informed her that I wasn’t really boyfriend material, had responded with the words, ‘We’ll see about that.’

‘If I’ve learned anything it’s that we’re all paler versions of our past selves. But the people we used to be are still in there somewhere.’

Even though she had changed the way she wore her hair, I knew it was Zara the moment I saw her. You never forget a face you have loved. Not even if you want to. Not even if you have the best excuse in the world.

Things happen all the time that we cannot control. Sometimes they are bad and sometimes they are good. It is just the way life is.’

I wish I could have known then how things would have turned out because I would have taken more photos of her. Details are important when a day is special to you. But the difficult thing is that quite often you do not know a day is special until long after it is over.

Vicky smiles. ‘That’s the right answer,’ she says, and then she gives me a kiss, the kind of kiss I know I will dream about, the kind that no matter what happens in the future, I know I will never forget.