Accidental Love Birds

I was sitting in my usual spot at the coffee shop, nursing a latte and feeling sorry for myself, when I saw her. She was standing on the sidewalk, just outside the window, and I knew it was her. The butterflies in my stomach turned into a nauseating flutter and I couldn't tell if it was love or my anxiety.

I didn't want to seem desperate, so I sat there for a few minutes, pretending to read my book, but I was really just looking at her. She was wearing a black turtleneck, jeans, and boots. Her hair was in a ponytail and she had a backpack slung across her shoulders. She looked like a college student. I tried to be cool but I couldn't help but stare. I watched her look up and down the street, and then she pulled a phone from her pocket and raised it to her ear. She was probably calling a friend to pick her up because she didn't seem like the type of girl who would be waiting for public transit.

I watched as she tapped her foot in the snow and then closed her eyes as if she were concentrating on something. I felt like she was thinking about me, too. My heart skipped a beat as I thought about all the missed opportunities I had to meet her before now. If only I had gone to that party with my friends when we were in college. If only I had taken that job in New York when it was offered to me.

The door chime sounded and she looked up. I could see her face more clearly now and I realized she didn't look like an undergrad at all. She looked older, more mature, and when she smiled at me, I thought my heart would beat out of my chest. She walked towards me and I stood up, almost knocking over my chair. I grabbed my book, which I had placed on the table in front of me, and held it up as if it were a weapon to keep her away. She raised her hands to show me that she meant me no harm and I dropped the book on the ground. The book, which was a first edition, worth thousands of dollars, landed upside down on the floor, but I didn't care. All I cared about was her.

"Hi," she said.

"Uh, hey," I said. I wanted to kiss her and felt that if I didn't soon, I would probably die.

"I'm sorry," she said. "This was a bad idea."

"No, it's fine," I said, trying to stop my hands from shaking. My anxiety had been replaced with pure joy and I didn't know how to control myself. I had the overwhelming desire to grab her and kiss her right here, right now, in front of everyone, but I knew that wasn't the right thing to do.

"You look nervous," she said.

"I'm fine," I said, tossing my hands up in the air. I could have kicked myself in the ass for lying to her. I was pathetic, really.

I was just about to tell her to leave when she placed her hand on my arm and said, "I've been waiting for this day for a very long time."

"What?" I said. My head was spinning and I needed to sit down. I was about to collapse. I would have fainted if she hadn't been holding me up by my arm.

"I have never wanted anything more in my life," she said.

I was so weak that I needed her to support me. My knees were shaking and I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep it together. I had never experienced such a strong, visceral sensation before in my entire life. All I could think about was her, the woman standing in front of me, the woman who had somehow found her way back to me, the woman I had missed so much it made me physically ill.

"The man who hurt me," she said. "He's gone, but he gave me something I can never ever get rid of."

I looked at her with my mouth agape, unable to understand what she was telling me.

"I'm pregnant," she said. "With your child."

I grabbed her hand, pulled her close to me, and said, "I'm so sorry."

She brushed her fingers against my cheek and said, "You have nothing to be sorry for."

I cried. I don't know why, but I just couldn't stop myself. I felt like I could finally breathe again, like a weight had been lifted from around my neck and I could finally feel the sun on my face again, like I was free. I wanted to kiss her and hold her, but I couldn't, not here, not in the coffee shop, with all those people around us. It was too public, too exposed. I couldn't help thinking about all the times we had been together and I had never realized that she was pregnant. It was no wonder she had always been so tired.

We left the coffee shop, running through the snow that had begun to fall. She took me to her place and we stayed there, hidden from the rest of the world. We couldn't get enough of each other, and it was as if the years that had passed in between were erased. She touched me the way she used to and I knew I would never let her go.

We lay in her bed, curled up next to each other, and talked until the sun rose. I told her all about what I had been doing since we had last seen each other, about how I had moved to New York and about my coffee shop, about my failed marriage and about my daughter. She told me about the man she had been with and how she had left to go back to school in New York, and how she had ended up meeting me at the coffee shop.

I told her about how I thought she had always been pregnant but she assured me that she had not. She told me how she was afraid I would never come looking for her, that I would never find her, and how she had been living a life of regret, thinking about what could have been between us. I told her that I felt the same way, that I had been thinking about her every day, and that if I had known that I was going to be a father, I would have never walked away.

I will start writing stories because I really love telling them. This is a story from Ebuzzydagr8.