Her, Him & Them: Based on a Fictional True Story

Based on a true, but fictional story

He was everything to her. She knew every possible thing she could know about him.  He was a photographer, an amazing one at that. He would say that SportsCenter was his favorite show, when in actuality it was Parenthood. If he could only eat one type of food for the rest of his life, he chose the Dragon Roll from Sushi on Main. He had a super fat tabby cat named Tabby. He’s deathly allergic to bees.  He’s the oldest of three children. He has two sisters that mean the absolute world to him. Their father died when he was 10 and he had to become the man of the house. When he’s ready to have children he wants four, two of each. These are the things she excitedly told her three girlfriends at brunch the first time she mentioned him.

She couldn’t believe a month had passed since she told them about him. She wasn’t going to, at least not then but she just kind of blurted it out after they kept badgering her about who her plus one would be to the wedding, which was now in a week. She had told her friends that they have eaten lunch together every single day since the first day they met on the park bench. The very park bench she was sitting on. She started getting that weird smell under her armpits and that beady sweat above her upper lip that happened whenever she got nervous. It wasn’t entirely untrue though. She did first see him on the park bench and they do eat lunch together every day, granted they have never spoken and they eat lunch from separate benches across from each other. On this day though, it was all going to change.

Ideally her plan was to walk up to him and start talking. They would hit it off. She would then court him the next couple of days then finally go all in and invite him to the wedding on Saturday. Mentally she pictured herself walking up to him, physically; her body was paralyzed on the bench out of fear. She finally got her brain and body to sync up and was able to stand up, but that was all she could do. She just stood there, statue like, for 20 seconds. He then stood up and looked straight at her. She thought that this was going to be the moment. It had now been 36 seconds and she believed that every second that had passed in this month long quasi-relationship had been leading up to this moment.  He smiled at her, ever so politely and maybe even a bit uncomfortably, turned and walked away. Her paralysis wore off and she plopped back down on her bench smiled and said triumphantly, “Baby steps. Tomorrow.”

The next two days she went back to her park bench but he was nowhere to be found. She started getting anxious, she could tell because of the upper lip sweat and odd armpit smell.

“Did I freak him out the other day? Maybe he went to sit on another bench at the park. Omg, what will my friends say if he doesn’t show up to the wedding on Saturday? Would they think I made him up?”

She quickly dismissed that thought. She justified with the notion that she had never given her friends any reason to question her mental stability and only people who are mentally unstable would make up a guy and she in fact did not make him up, he was actually a real person. Then out loud for reassurance, “Plus I’ve shown them pictures.” She had shown them pictures. For the past month she was able to discreetly take pictures of him, remarkably at angles that made it seem like he had known and consented for his photo to be taken.

That night she couldn’t fall asleep, she was finally able to close her eyes when the sun was about to rise into the sky. An hour and a half later she was startled awake by banging on her apartment door. She groggily answered the door to her three girlfriends. One looked confused, one looked agitated and one looked emotionless. The agitated one threw up a newspaper. “Look.” She held it so close to her face that her eyes couldn’t focus on it. She took a step back and then she saw his picture, in black and white, right in front of her. Her face now matched the face of the confused one. The agitated one then yelled. “Read!” She started reading:

GREGORY MATTHEW PAULSON

Gregory Matthew Paulson passed away suddenly on July 27^th, 2013. He was 33. He was a beloved sous-chef at the Cheesecake Factory. An only child, he was survived by his loving parents Charles and Susan, his fiancée Maggie, many aunts, uncles and cousins and his adored German Sheppard, Jake. Family and friends are invited to join his Celebration of Life on Saturday…

“You’re a fucking psycho!” the agitated one said.

“Wait! Wait... let me explain…”

“How can you explain this?!” the confused one chimed in with bewilderment in her voice, “Everything you said about this guy was a lie. His name, his family, his job, his fucking dog.  Jesus!”

“I’m sorry! But you guys, you have to under—“

“A month. A whole fucking month you’ve been lying to us. Making us look like chumps.” interrupted the emotionless one with a stoic look still upon her face. “I was so excited for you to have a date to my wedding. Finally someone who really seemed to care for you and make you so happy but it was all a lie.”

“It wasn’t all a lie!” she responded with desperation dripping on every word.

“Really? Did you even know this guy?”

“Well...”

“You’re kidding. You know what? Name one thing you told us that wasn’t a lie and we’ll forget this ever happened.”

There was an elongated silence between the four friends. She looked at each of them twice before she got a look a quarterback gets when he has no other choice but to close his eyes, throw the ball and hope for the best. She grimaced.

“Uh, well…we both did go to the park everyday…”

“Don’t bother coming to my wedding on Saturday. Go fuck yourself. Let’s go girls.”

She stood there in the empty doorway with his face on the staring up at her from the floor.

Saturday came and she woke up and stared at her ceiling for 45 minutes until she knew what she had to do. She got up, showered, put her dress on and drove to the church. The place was so packed no one even noticed her walking in. She was glad about that because she couldn’t remember a time she had ever been more nervous. It wasn’t until she was halfway down the aisle that she started to really take in her surroundings. She noticed the huge picture in the front of the church off to the side; his parents were standing right next to it being consoled by another couple. She noticed the casket was closed. She was curious as to why they would hide such a beautiful face as his.

She walked up to coffin and placed her hand on it. One glistening tear streamed all the way down her face and hit the box. Before she could wipe it she felt a nudge on her calf and turned to see Jake, his dog sniffing her. She was going to pet him when she heard “Jake, no.” and a girl about her age grabbed Jake’s collar “Sorry about him.”

This girl was hurting, her entire face was red and puffy, but somehow she still managed to look beautiful. She wiped her face with her right hand and stuck out her left hand, “I am Greg’s—I was Greg’s fiancée, how did you know him?”

She slowly stuck her hand out to seal the handshake.

“Oh, uh, just from around. I am terribly sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, how did Dav—Greg pass away?”

“He was out running with Jake and Jake chased something into some bushes. Greg went to get Jake and when he went to the bushes there was a bee hive. He was deathly allergic to bees.”

Her face lit up and she smiled.