Part Three. The Meeting

Introduction

Welcome to final of three short stories about a friendship and unrequited love. It is a universal story. Perhaps you have experienced the feeling of loving someone who could not love you? Perhaps you are the one that was loved and could not love back? Either way, you are changed. Perhaps stronger somehow - certainly wiser? Or perhaps not?  

If you have arrived at 'The Meeting' without having first read Parts One and Two, please take some time to catch up on Matthew's and Rachel's stories first.

THE MEETING 

Escaping from the cold wet November evening, Matthew entered the Little Pub on the Corner. The sultry, melancholic voice of Nina Simone was playing through the speaker by the door, intermingling with the buzz of quiet conversation. Logs crackled in a fire that was blazing in the hearth and, feeling the heat from the flames, he took off his coat and wandered to the bar.  He felt so tired, it had not been a hard day at the office, but he was preoccupied and had lacked focus. He just wanted some peace and a pint and this was the perfect place to get it. As he ordered his drink, he thought about his current girlfriend - nice, clever, unattached, probably wondering why he hadn't messaged in a while.

He surveyed the room. An elderly couple were sitting in companionable silence, nursing half drunk glasses of stout and watching as subtitles rolled across the tv screen above the bar. In the snug, two friends were playing pool, sipping beer between shots, whilst a barmaid collected glasses and wiped down tables.

He walked towards the bar, and there she was.

Rachel.

He watched as she ran her fingers through her fringe, moving the hair from her eyes. She was alone, but not lonely - laughing softly at something the barman said, stirring her drink slowly and, absent-mindedly, sucking the moisture from the tip of the plastic stick.

Matthew hesitated, though only for a moment. It was the kind of pause the body makes when it catches up to the heart and asks, Are you sure?

She looked up.

Their eyes met. 

“Hey,” she said, the faintest smile playing at her mouth. Not a welcome, not a warning. Just a doorway.

“Hey,” he replied.

“You can join me if you like,” she said. “Unless you’re waiting for someone?”

“No,” Matthew said, pulling out the stool beside her. “No one’s waiting.”

Which was true. But not quite honest.

He sat. The bartender nodded at him, and moved away to serve a bespectacled, goatee clad hipster who was making himself comfortable at the other end of the bar.

For a moment they were both silent, neither knowing quite what to say.

Then Matthew spoke, "You look... different.” 

“So do you,” Rachel replied.

He noticed her ringless hands, the vibrant red painted on her nails, the confidence in her posture. She noticed the tiredness behind his charm.

Rachel took a slow sip of her drink - not to stall, but because she always drank slowly. Matthew recalled how she often referred to herself as a "cheap date" - she couldn’t handle her alcohol, he smiled at the memory.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said finally. Her voice was even, but not indifferent. 

“No?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “This was kind of... our spot, wasn’t it?”

She smiled faintly, not because it was true, but because it was only partly a lie. They had been here more times than they could count, always after nine, always without much planning. That was the deal, back then: spontaneous, casual, free. Which worked. Until it didn’t.

“I come here for the playlist now,” Rachel said, as Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush began to harmonize, “I guess you still come for the beer?”

Matthew chuckled. “Actually, yeah. 

The bartender set a glass down in front of him without being asked. The familiar, silent ritual felt heavier than it should have. Matthew nodded his thanks but glanced at Rachel, momentarily taken back to another conversation months before. She had been the one who had spoken about her growing feelings for him and asked, whether they were ever going to talk about what 'this' was. He had looked at her for a long moment but hadn’t spoken. Uncomfortable, she had changed the subject and he was relieved, after all, they both knew the deal and he wasn't looking to modify it.

“So,” he said. “How’ve you been?”

She leaned back slightly, crossing one leg over the other, effortlessly composed.

“Good. Actually, really good. I got a promotion, more money, more holidays, whats not to like."

“That’s great,” Matthew said, and meant it.

“It is.” Her tone was simple, but there was pride there. 

He realised in that moment that she was somehow more herself. Not different in any tenable way. But steadier - as if she had stopped bending to meet people halfway. 

Rachel tilted her glass, watching the ice settle.

“And you? How is my favourite man about town?"

The words were light. The aim wasn’t.

Matthew blinked. Then smiled - tight, but not defensive.

“Guess I deserve that.”

“No, you don’t,” she said. “But I wanted to say it anyway.”

They both laughed - this time, genuinely.

The moment stretched. Neither of them said what they were really thinking: that something inside the room had shifted. Not in a dramatic, heart-stopping way. Just enough to notice. Just enough to wonder if there was still something worth sifting through in the ashes.

They ordered another round, not because they were chasing a buzz, but because neither of them was quite ready to leave. There was a gravity to the evening now - a quiet pull they both felt but hadn’t acknowledged.

“I hear, on the grapevine, that you have a new lady in your life?” It was both a statement and a question. Her tone was not sharp, just curious. She took another sip of her drink.

Matthew exhaled through his nose, a kind of half-laugh that didn’t rise very far.

“Not really. I mean - we’re still technically seeing each other, but... it’s not serious.”

“It never was with you,” she said, without venom.

Matthew looked at her fully now, for the first time since he sat down.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he said.

“I know,” Rachel replied. Then, after a beat: “But you didn’t try not to, either.”

That landed.

He looked down at his glass, swirled the pale liquid, then set it aside like it had turned against him.

“I thought I was doing the right thing. Not making promises. Keeping it honest.”

“Yes Matt, you were honest,” she said. “But you were just not vulnerable. It wasn't that you didn't want me, but that you wouldn't even let yourself consider it. By protecting yourself from feeling too much you made me feel like I was asking too much."

Silence again. But now it was heavier.

Matthew looked down and began to pick at his fingers. Rachel sighed remembering the last time she had seen him do that. She reached out and squeezed his hand gently. He looked up at her.

“I’ve thought about you,” he said quietly.

Rachel nodded, 

“I know.”

“No, I mean - I’ve thought about... how I handled things that night.”

Rachel’s gaze didn’t waver.

“I waited for you to change your mind,” she said. “Longer than I should have. But I did. I thought maybe you’d realise we weren’t just a convenience.”

Matthew’s throat tightened.

“I think I did realise it,” he said. “Just too late.”

Rachel reached for her coat but didn’t stand.

“You know,” she said, as she leant forward and slipped her arm into her sleeve, “there was a time I would’ve dropped everything if you’d said those words.”

Matthew didn’t move.

“And now?” he asked.

She smiled - not bitter, not wistful. Just clear.

“And now I'm glad I learned to stop waiting.” She stood up.

“Can I walk you out?” Matthew asked, breaking the silence which now seemed interminable.

Rachel considered it, then nodded.

Outside, the rain had slowed to a mist. Above them, the street light buzzed and cast its light onto the puddles on the pavement. The reflection gave the scene an ethereal glow, shrouding the couple in a soft delicate light.

They stood by the curb, saying nothing for a moment. The silence wasn’t tense now. It was full. Of memory, of peace, of everything that didn’t need to be said anymore.

“I’m glad I saw you,” Rachel said.

“Me too,” Matthew replied "I’m glad you’re okay too. More than okay.”

She reached out and touched his arm - not possessively, not sentimentally. Just... closure.

“I am.”

They parted at the corner and, for a while, Matthew could hear her heels tap lightly against wet pavement, steady, assured. He put his hands in his coat pockets and looked around him, feeling lighter somehow.  Resolved, he took his phone from his pocket and dialled.