You live and Learn.

" He saw the calf of her left leg entering the lift. That was all he saw but it was enough. For it was a beautiful calf. But what was more important though was that it was a familiar calf. A bit too familiar. That calf brought back memories. And it literally knocked the wind out of him.

What he didn't know was that, that leg had been avoiding him for the last 10 months. She knew he worked in the building. She had been 3 floors down on the exact same wing for 10 months. She had bumped into a work mate of his in the lift once who had unknowingly given her their general office schedule. He had been trying to hit on her. Such a shame. He was so nice looking. So she made sure she always arrived an hour before he got in and left an hour before he was normally set to leave. The wonders of flexible working hours. But this day, on a totally insignificant Wednesday, she had forgotten her lunch on the kitchen table so she had needed to walk out and get some food. That was the day he saw her well heeled leg enter the lift.

You see, life is a dangerous place. A place where things happen for no apparent reason, in very suspicious manners, to conspire against you. The two of them now clearly understood that. For her, it was the day she got the lucrative job offer in his building and even worse, when she got assigned a parking space across from him. For him, it was that unwitting Wednesday in the lobby, when he saw her leg disappear into the lift.

They hadn't so much as smelt each other in over 2 years. 29 months and 5 days to be exact. 29 months in which she had calmly and slowly put her life back together. 29 months of which she had vowed off men, their immaturity and antics. 29 months in which she had systematically avoided him and his world. And life was now threatening to cave in all her hard work. Her thoughts were just whirling around in her head like wayward pirates. Damn the lunch on the breakfast table. It better have put itself in the fridge by the time I get home. She said to no one in particular.

For 29 months, he had sat in silent regret. For a few months after he last saw her, he dialled and hang up her number at least 2 million times. He just didn't know what to say to her then. He didn't know what to say to her now. Not while he stared at the lift door close behind her. Not when he was looking at a leg from his past walking back into his life. He wanted to run and stop the lift but his legs were numb. frozen. unwilling. He was hoping she had at least seen him. He knew she hadn't. He had always known he would bump into her. Just not this soon. Life is shorter than we think. He sighed.

Life is stranger than fiction.She thought quietly to herself. Their ambitions had been the same, their lives seemed to sync. At least that's what she thought. She had found perfection. Intimacy. Friendship. She was a beaming ray of sunshine. For 3 and a half years. Everyday. Nothing could bring her down. No one could break her. No one did. No one but him. Him, who suddenly decided he needed time to think. He said he thought he had made a mistake. He said his life needed to develop a little more. He said, he needed to buy land, earn more, think more. And there she was, foolishly thinking that she was placed to help him become better, get to greater heights. She foolishly she thought that they were in it together, forever and ever.

She wondered why he had so strongly crossed her mind on this unassuming Wednesday. As she entered the lift and remembered the man who had left her at the altar. The man who had left her broken and hardened. She felt a little shiver run down her spine. She sighed out thoughts of him from her mind. Silently, she wished him away from her life and vowed never to forget her lunch on the kitchen table again....Then she watched the lift doors close on her past and waited to get to her floor."