Ever experienced this – you have that one moment where you could have made the best of it but you didn’t because you couldn’t or you just didn’t have the balls to?

He felt that.

And it cost him dearly.

He’d watch her every day as she’d sit on the smooth stone bench by the library. She was pretty and intelligent – she was always reading a book. He first noticed her when he wore a Mr. Men’s Mr. Perfect T-shirt and she wore the Little Miss’ Little Miss Giggles one. He sat opposite her in a separate stone bench.

After that he’d sit there every single day during the lunch hour, eating his sandwich, because she’d be there, every single day. She’d be there, reading a book. The first few days it was ‘Vital Signs’ by Robin Cook and by the end of the second week she’d finished ‘Where Rainbows End’ by Cecilia Ahern. Even after the first week, he couldn’t go up to her and speak to her because she never acknowledged his presence.

Into the third week, he’d sit there and swap his lunch for a book, sneaking a peek at her over his book. Another couple of days and she started noticing his presence there.

First, they exchanged nervous glances. The next day, a nervous smile. Then a smile of acknowledgement. And then every day after that they’d always give a smile of acknowledgement. He could never go up to her and talk to her. He didn’t know what was going in her head and he was pretty sure she couldn’t work out what was going in his own head. To him, he always thought that she thought of him as a stranger who sat there by the library on the stone bench, every day.

Nearly a month and he still never asked her. It was a fine Tuesday, 22nd of June. That was the last day he saw her, but of course, he didn’t know that then. She was wearing a Little Miss Lucky T shirt, reading ‘Then We Came to the End’ by Joshua Ferris.

The next day, the start of the lunch hour he sat on his stone bench and waited for her to come with a book and sit on the granite ledge. But there was no sign of her. He continued waiting there for the next couple of days but he’d never see her. He continued waiting there for a month everyday during the lunch hour but she’d never be there. His heart soaked in disappointment when a tiny voice in his head asked him to give up on her. After all, he didn’t know her name or her number or her address. She was gone.

About a year later, he got a job in the local library. His first job was to clear out the newspapers. He browsed through them as he started stacking up the newspapers according to the date when a small article caught his eye in the corner. ‘Academic dies in a car crash’ and just below the tiny little heading was a picture of her. The girl who he spent those lonely days waiting for but she never came. He read the date on the newspaper and it was Wednesday the 23rd of June. He read the article and discovered that she’d died on the Tuesday, the day when he last saw her.

She was gone. Forever. There was no chance he’d ever see her. Even though he never spoke to her in his life, a tear rolled down his cheek. They were stranger’s yet, so far. The connection he felt with her was enough to break a heart. His. Ever since she was gone there was no sunshine in his heart. Because every time he thinks of her even now, she goes away.

“…You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime…” – Eminem in ‘Lose Yourself’