THE ONLY way she – Miss Lucy, the boss-lady at the Chinese food shop – could describe it was a mouse falling in love with a cat; and as funny as it sounded, it was true. They, 29-year-old Neil Conrad and a hopeless romantic and mental adolescent seven years his junior named Karen Eldon, were meant for each other. But yet again, they weren’t. It was a contradiction, a complication that she could not wrap my head around.

Working at ‘Good Luck’s (a crappy Chinese restaurant) in the centre of Georgetown was not the fairytale Karen had grown up hearing about.

As a child, you were told that your ‘Prince Charming’ would come riding on a white horse and make all your troubles go away, and that you will live happily ever after. Not true! Your parents, the cartoons and movies all told you about happy endings. Not true! All fairy tales come to an end, a simple fact, just as true as the fact that the end is not always happy.

The challenge that is always left is how to be; how does this mouse fall in love with the cat and then live again when the cat takes away a vital and supporting limb.

Rewind a bit to seven months before…
A waitress in a hole of a place was not the ideal job, but she made do.

Hey! We all have to make a living somehow! An orphan on her own in the city, she did have to eat, right! But things were not going her way. The money, plus tips, barely covered rent, and Karen was saving up for a cosmetology course.

In her eyes, it was her ticket to somewhere better.

“In truth, I never could pin down what it was I did want, but I sure knew what I did not want. I have ambitions, you know; dreams of my own,” she muttered to herself one day.

It was a hot Tuesday night, and business was a bit slow when he walked in. Strange enough, in that moment, all of Karen’s dreams seemed to ghost forward to meet her. Tall, well built, seemingly well off. He was perfect.

“Hmm…my perfect stranger,” she said under her breath with a smile as she made her way round the patchwork of tables in the restaurant to take his order.

He was quite the gentleman, the gentleman who caught her staring at him too many times in the time he took to finish his order of chicken fried rice.

Neil — as she later learnt was his name — came in every Tuesday. After that, the two, who were from completely different worlds, sort of clicked.

It’s a spirit-taking world is what people always say, yes?

They led completely different lives, but theirs was a similar outlook. They both were ambitious and had dreams… plus, the chemistry was there.

It was a good feeling, and Neil confessed as much.

Mind you, despite the stresses of everyday living, Karen did well not to let herself go to seed. She was still quite attractive, and her interest in cosmetology helped too.

“Hey! I still know a thing or two!” she boasted to her reflection in the mirror, as she was getting dressed to meet Neil for dinner one night. It took him no time at all, so after a week, a date was the only logical thing in order.

She had the money, so she sprang for a taxi to meet him at a simple, classy little restaurant in a nice part of town.

“I work for now as a middle manager at an insurance company, but I want to do better,” he told her.

Neil was also charmingly candid, and spoke with an air of authority, a sureness of his efforts to achieve his goals. Needless to say, Karen found him winning.

“It is a good feeling,” he said as their first night ended.

At the restaurant, he simply stared at her and, in a quick motion, boldly planted a kiss on her lips that did things to her stomach. Resisting the urge was too much for her, and for too long, she had held back. Karen pressed her lips against his with an urgency that matched his. When his hands found its way under her shirt, something snapped in her head and she pulled back.

“No! I really am not ready!”

Neil smiled.

“I won’t force you to; don’t want to spoil the good feeling, you know.”

They both laughed nervously, and the tension of a few minutes ago passed with ease. He walked with her from the restaurant to the bus park, where they took the bus to her place. Once there, he brushed his lips against hers before making his way home.

“You seein’ that customer?” Miss Lucy said to Karen when she breezed into the restaurant one midday, “He ain’t no good for you, girl.”

“Miss Lucy! It isn’t like that! I think I’m falling in love with him, and that he is the right one.”

“Girl, come to your senses! There’s no right one! That is all just ‘nancy-story’ business! Get yuh head straight and don’t do anything stupid!”

“You can’t always be negative, you know,” Karen shot back. “This feels good, and it is what I want. And for once in my life, I’m doing what I want.”

“Girl, I telling you!”

Karen refused to let her day, or her mood, be spoiled.

She learned, compliments of life at a girls’ orphanage, that the trick in life is to simply enjoy it. Some things were in the cards for you, and some things weren’t. Intolerance would only take you so far, and taking it easy had been proven to work. Things somehow ended back right where they are supposed to be.

Looking back at Miss Lucy, Karen thought of her words and recognized that there was no pretended concern. Rather, she was just disapproving because she thought it dangerous.

“I am filled… I have real emotion, and this is a way to express it,” Karen called after Miss Lucy, who said nothing but snorted in an offhand manner.

On their next date, both Karen and Neil sensed that something seemed different. There was a tension in the air, not a bad kind, but a sort of anxiousness, and it only increased ten-fold when they got back to Neil’s place.

Karen talked nervously, steering the conversation towards the cosmetology course she wanted to take.

“You talk too much,” Neil laughed, as he pulled her close to him and began the assault on her lips.

Karen was always amazed at what his kisses did to her; the effect it had was quite uncanny.

Caught up in the passion of the moment, she  felt herself let go. Neil felt it too, because he ventured to take things further, his hands reaching up and unbuttoning her blouse.

“I don’t know why I am sacred, unless I am sacred of myself,” she confessed as she broke the kiss.

He kissed her again, slowly this time, as he slipped her clothes off.

“It will be okay,” he said.

She trusted him, she knew that then, and the night was something that she had longed for, something that had always eluded her.

It was a first for Karen; being with a man who seemingly touched her soul with every caress and kiss. To say the least, their night together ended well… for both of them.         

It went on like that for another three months. He would come see her at her place, or she would go to his. Either way, someone ended up spending the night at the other’s home.

He continued working, and was helping her financially. She quit her job so she could focus more on her studies, and they were both making progress.

They were comfortable with each other; comfortable with the little piece of heaven they’d found.

But, it was as if it was not meant to last. In their sixth month together, Karen felt a growing restlessness she recognized as a bad sigh and dreaded it.

“Is everything okay?” she asked him one Sunday afternoon while they were in the kitchen making dinner together.

There was an ominous pause, and in that instant, K
aren knew.

“Are you cheating on me?”

It was the first question that came to her mind, but as to whether she was ready for the answer, she was not sure.

“Karen…” Neil began slowly, guilt lacing his voice.

“What’s her name?”

“Angela,” he replied.

Karen dropped the knife just then. Hands shaking, she left the kitchen and headed straight for the bedroom.

There were too many thoughts going around in her head, and she needed space to be.

He was cheating! Why? How could he! Miss Lucy had said she could have her job back, so maybe she’d be okay. She was almost finished with her course, and had a few job offers lined up. She still had her apartment, and she had breath in her body.

She realized then she was not breathing. Inhaling, the tears came. Neil had followed her to the bedroom, of course, but she could not make out what he was feeling. His eyes were blank.

“Why?”

“I don’t know; it just happened.”

“I loved you, damn it!”

“Karen, I am sorry.”

“No you’re not!”

“I love you babe; you know that. I love you more than you know.”

“Then why hurt me?”

“I… I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, right; you’ll damn well be sorry! You made this decision for us; remember that!”

With that, she walked out.

A week later, she was still tormented over her lost love. The painful thing was that she still loved him, but it was clear that he could not really love her. He would not hurt her if he did.

She tried to stay busy, and went to see Miss Lucy about work.

“Of course you can come back, dear,” she said.

“Thank you, Miss Lucy.”

“I know it’s not easy, but you put yourself there! I warned you!”

Karen managed a weak smile, and left soon after.

She would have to deal with the taunts of the naysayers who were proven right. No one would understand what she felt about Neil. No one could. 

“All the goddamn men in this world are sick. They suffer from CHRONIC DISSATISFACTION,” she yelled at the walls one night. “They can’t just be; they have to mess things up.”

The nights were most painful. Tormented thoughts, nothing to distract you, and an immeasurable sense of loss kept sleep at bay.

“The dream was exciting, and I risked everything… only to fall flat on my face.”

Karen cried herself to sleep that night, a thing common for several other nights after.

She called him after that, trying to understand why, but he never had an explanation that did justice to the pain he put her through. He kept calling to say he loved her, but she could not understand that.

After a while, she stopped contact with him altogether.

Her life was in pieces, and feeling lost, Karen was trying to live, but it was an upheaval, emotionally, daily.

It was three weeks later when Neil walked into the restaurant with his trademark blank expression on his face.

It opened up all the old wounds she’d been trying to close.

Hearing his voice caused a lump to well up in her throat. Meeting his eyes brought tears to hers. Seeing him brought back old memories she’d been trying to box away in her memory.

Karen turned away. She could not face him. She would not face him. She did not want to hear what he had to say, even if she still loved him.

At the end of the day, love was not enough.

Men can never justify the reasons for doing things, making decisions or affecting some sort of change.

There are many truths in life, not just these. This much Karen learnt.

The power of love is yet to be understood. It can hold one captive or set one free. It could be given without hope of return and rejected without ever being lost. But it is vital to believe in the love offered by an honest heart, no matter how impractical or absurd or fearful the circumstance. You can never let the pain you feel, for whatever reason, cut you off from the world.

All times are uncertain and the change is inevitable, moreover the chance to love and love truly might never come again.

Like they say, it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all – if that is any absolution.

Karen’s and Neil’s was a twisted love story of sorts, but then again, which love story is not.