Four Years Ago
I remembered standing on a rooftop with Will in 1992. It was the first night we spent any time together, and, per my request, he was practicing proposing to his college sweetheart and I was the test dummy. I shot him down point-blank the first time, but then, being the creative speech writer that he was, he began talking about the first time he saw Sarah's hands, how he couldn't imagine not being able to hold them.
I remembered the feeling I had gotten when I had walked away from Paco on that beach in 1994, like my life had been changed forever by that one small, but pivotal moment. I had made a choice, and I had known, even then, that it was the right choice. Even though my hopes of having a love that would last had been dashed when I had gotten back to New York and Will had told me he was proposing to his girlfriend, I had known I had made the right choice.
The moment Maya reached out her hand to me and I took it, I got that same sense of my life having changed forever and again it was for the better. I understood what Will had meant about not being able to imagine not holding someone's hand. Maya had looked at me with innocent, honest, wise blue eyes and proposed the simplest of steps; "invite us up and we tell you the story". To me, the next step forward seemed so complicated, but to this little girl, it was all so clear, and so it became clear to me as well.
I had fallen for Will Hayes the first time I ever seen him. Then he had opened his mouth and it had all been downhill from there. Now I found myself falling helplessly for Will Hayes's daughter too, the obviously sweet and wise-beyond-her-years Maya Hayes, who took my hand and led my towards the 'something' that had been missing in my relationship with Kevin– a happy ending.
Maya led me to my own front door and then she went on ahead, and, for a moment, I followed her. Before I could second-guess myself, I turned back and I threw myself into Will's arms that seemed to catch me as if he had been catching me for years. I looked into the eyes that I had missed for eleven years, and then I kissed him and all I could think was, 'this is it. He's The One.'
When Will set me back down and I turned back into the hallway, I saw Maya looking at us, and for a moment I panicked. Then she grinned and nodded, a rosy blush blossoming across her cheeks. I followed her gaze behind me, to her father and he was looking at her in a way that I remembered.
It was the same way my dad had looked at me, like I was the center of his universe.
"Dad? Are you coming or not? Because I'm telling April the story with or without you," Maya told him with a smirk.
Will smiled. "I'm coming, I'm coming," he said.
As he caught up to Maya and I, he accepted the hand she offered to him and then he took mine. I couldn't imagine not being able to hold his hand.
That night, they told me The Story, and Maya was right. I did "just know".
