Love, really

I had given up on women. After a rather messy divorce, and years of bouncing from bed-to-bed, I thought love was a false concept, something the Establishment had invented to prod us dumb animals into consuming more products. It's never easy to admit when you are wrong, but I was, thankfully.
Laurie and I met when we were 16 and in summer school. I walked in and was floored by the sight of her. I quickly took a seat just across the aisle so that she would have to see me, and it wasn't long before we stumbled awkwardly into conversation only two kids can have; passing notes filled with all the silly flirting I could muster-yeah, looking back I was not so smooth, but don't judge too harshly- I didn't develop my " A " game till a couple of years later.
We kept in touch over the years, and gradually drifted in and out of each others lives. I would hear from her every once and a while, how she was doing, what college was like, for I had forgone continuing education to pursue a career in drug-dealing, which proved quite lucrative.
Looking back in those moments, I passed the time with insignificant others; it's mind-boggling how lonely you can feel while lying next to the one who might be in your arms, but not in your heart.
Eventually, our orbits came together again-she came into the bar I was working at with a few of her friends, looking for a guy they went to high school with, who had worked there for a while and was one of my dope-smoking, poker playing pals. Once again, I was floored, but was too busy playing it cool and too caught up in the nightlife of a big city to pay much attention. She would drop in occasionally, in the meantime we did what most people our age do: buy houses,get married,fail miserably at trying to be respectable, slowly dying in the suburbs.
My marriage had crumbled, and I moved back to Atlanta-not too far where she and her husband had bought a new home. They would stop by my d.j. booth on weekends, and I'd put on a happy face and console myself with dark fantasies of opening up his throat. Eventually, I couldn't maintain any sort of sanity-drinking and drugging to escape what I perceived to be a constant series of shitty situations, being so close to the woman I'd always wanted, and having to watch her have a life with another. I quit my job, and tried to leave it all behind- I moved to the middle of nowhere, disgusted with the crap hand I'd been dealt, and lost all hope. I used to rally against the onslaught of Life, but after so much disappointment and self-abuse, I trudged into obscurity with my head hung low,to fade away, to become a lost name.
At my most apathetic and darkest hour, she appeared on my doorstep. A couple of years had passed since I had disappeared, but she had found me amidst the ruined remnants of myself. She showed me the way, and in doing so, saved my life.
I don't look back so often now, because there is so much to look forward to. Being with her is the warm quilt that casts off any cold.
That's our story, and I'm sticking to her.