I held her hand tight, and I wasn’t ever letting go. Not all stories get to end like this, I thought. Mine certainly don’t. Too often I had seen beauty and love walk on by. Too often I had let Maria slip on by. Her words echoing in my inner conscience until our next seemingly chance encounter. Not always for lack of seeing on my part either. Not for a lack of hope, most certainly. Fate has a way of playing roulette like no one else.

Maria’s big beautiful brown eyes glistened as they connected with mine. How the years have passed. The love, the heartbreak, and the despair. None of that mattered anymore. Hope had been my daily ration. Hope had been my manna from heaven. In this desert of despair, hope is what gave me the strength to believe in this moment. No, I couldn’t let go of her hand now.

All of it passed through my mind. They say your life flashes before your eyes when we meet death. Perhaps. Well, the inverse of that is definitely true too. I found in that moment my life flashing before my eyes now that I was truly alive. Maybe not my whole life, but certainly these last 11 years. 11 years. 11 years of pain and of hoping again. Has it really been that long since we first met? No, I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let go of the life she was giving me in this moment.

Maria’s eyes blinked. Her sweet smile seemed to say everything. How I loved that unique coutenance. How I loved that tenderness of disposition.

“Where do we go from here?,” Maria asked. Her words seemed to bounce off of me as she squeezed my hands a little harder. “I can’t even think of where I go in the next 5 minutes,” I managed to say between shallow breaths.

Her chuckle finally broke off our eye contact. Her silky black hair swayed next to her cheeks as she tossed her head to the side with a playful grin.

“No, I can’t ask this of you. You’ve done too much already,” Maria said with her eyes refocusing on mine. “We aren’t the same people we were 11 years ago. So much has changed since then.”

“Yes, we’ve grown stronger. We’ve grown more resilient,” my voice cracked in response. “That’s not what I mean,” Maria responded. “We both have such different responsibilities. Such…I don’t know…such different perspectives. I’m not the same person I was all those years ago,” Maria continued. Our hands loosened ever so slightly, and her sweet expression was replaced by a look of genuine concern.

“I can’t change the past,” I replied. “I can only live in this moment.”

Her look of concern was soon replaced with a look I had never seen before. It wasn’t necessarily joy, and it wasn’t necessarily concern. It was a thousand yard stare. As if she was looking right through my eyes. Right into my soul. Seeing all my hopeless love and imperfections. Seeing my mourning heart. I knew then what it was like to be loved. To be loved like this was to be reborn.

Our lips locked for a moment, and then parted. I held her hand tighter. No, I knew then I could not let her go. Not this time. Not ever again.