~Once upon a time, as it had to be, there was a young woman, who knew that she had seen it all. Everything out there was hers, except one thing. She had not experienced love, for all the great and fun people she had dated. She had yet to experience true love. It would be dazzling, she thought.
Then, as it had to be, she met a young man. It may have not been love at first sight... actually, for a few months they came into contact they barely noticed each other. After a while of this, the young man came up and talked to her. She smiled at him, was engaged in the conversation, thought about him after. Here was someone who would be the perfect friend, she thought. After a few weeks like this, they became very close. Their eyes would light up at the sight of each other, and for all of the smiles and flirting there was some kind of doubt. Not the normal fooling around kind of doubt. The kind of doubt that, if this were going to become a relationship, it was not going to be the ordinary kind of relationship. Right?
There was one problem, though. This young woman had a wall around herself. Most people's walls, because everyone has them whether they know it or not, most of their walls are pretty thin and easy to get through in some parts, if not all parts. But not this girl. She kept a well-maintained wall, of decent thickness and height. The stones were of many sizes, colors, and edges. People walked by, they touched it and examined it, but they knew they could not penetrate this wall easily, sometimes not at all. So they didn't. This young woman was not a standing-off sort of person, but nor did she easily open herself up to hurt. It would take someone out of the ordinary, someone who was special, to make her open this wall. As it had to be.
One night, the young man was on the other side of the wall again, as usual, leaning up against it and talking to her, and the young woman decided to take a chance. So, she walked up to the wall, and felt around for a bit. She needed to pick out exactly the right spot. Moving her hand over this brick-colored stone and that tan-looking one, she made up her mind. The young woman cautiously took away one of the smaller stones, and peered out. And there he was, looking at her, serious but smiling for her anxiously, somewhat knowing what was going to happen, and somewhat unsure. And she reached out a few fingers, and, in a way that far exceeded the physical, they touched hands. Their eyes locked, and there was so much in them, and they knew that this was right.
Slowly, after a while, one by one, she took down a little bit of the wall. Maybe a large-looking rock there, a tiny stone here and there, but nevertheless she was taking them down. And each time she did, he would smile at her and she would feel perfectly right with the world again, brave enough to let him see a little more of herself. As it had to be.
Life was perfect. And slowly, this young man and this young woman realized that something had happened to them that was quite out of the ordinary. And they knew that it was right. As it had to be.
This went on for a long time... sometimes it would be a while before they met again, before she took down another stone. Sometimes she might take down two, or even three in the same time and place. She didn't speed up the process, she let it come and go as it wanted to, when the time was right. Until then, they had each other. The would talk for a long time, her closing her eyes and singing, playing her fingers along the wall, and he; watching her, and also playing his fingers along the same wall, of course not moving the stones, but in a way that reassured each other that it was okay. They would still look at each other with wonder in their eyes, of understanding, of faith, and their hands would touch again, through different spots, still with glorious feeling.
After a while, though, something was not as it had been before. Neither the young man nor the young woman could understand each other as much as they did, and they were both confused. This time, though, when they were scared they did not reach through the wall and grab each other's hand. When they touched each other's hands, it was still special but it had lost something that couldn't be placed. The young man would no longer watch her, and the young woman was no longer happy to close her eyes and sing. They still knew that there was something between them, but to them it seemed a little less extraordinary. They could not read each other's hearts with just a warm look, and this threw them a little off-balance. The girl did not even notice it, but slowly she began replacing a few stones here and there. The boy probably didn't notice either, but the wall where he spent so many hours seemed a little less like a haven.
They slowly started turning away from each other, each in their own way. The young man put his head in his hands and wouldn't meet her eyes, and the young woman's hands shook as she quickly replaced many of the rocks that she had so carefully and lovingly taken down, even though she couldn't tell you why. Things were changing now- as it had to be.
Once or twice, they tried to reach out to each other. The girl called out to him for help without even thinking about it, and then the young man's expression changed and looked away. Or the young man started pressing in one of the more tender stones a little later, and the girl gave a cry and rushed over to push it back to where it had been. The stone stayed where it was, in place in the wall.
Later, they both regretted doing these things, but what else was there that they could do? It was as it had to be. Right?
One day, as the girl was putting back a few more stones with a more apathetic heart, she heard footsteps- sure of themselves, and walking in the other direction. She quickly pushed aside the stone she had been working on, and looked through her wall with a fast-beating heart. It was the young man, he was walking away from her.
And the girl was too moved to do anything about it. She wanted to call out to him. She wanted to look into his eyes again, and understand him as purely as she used to. She wanted him to tell her what was going on, because she couldn't understand it herself. And this young woman sat down, tucked into herself, and gave a heart-wrenching sob, knowing that what she once had had was gone forever, because things were not as they had to be.
She knelt down on the sparse grass near a thick part of her wall, leaned her head against the cool stone, collected herself and tried to come to terms with what happened. And it was hard. Then, with trembling fingers, she reached down, and took that rock that she had just pushed away back up in her hand, and traced her thumb around the edges. With a heart as heavy as the stone she had, she moved her hand up and slowly replaced it in the wall, knowing that looking back out to his quieting footsteps would hurt too much.
The young woman recovered, but she could not stand to go near the wall. It hurt to remember things.
Later, the wall was put back up. Some of the stones, that had been moved, were slightly tinted with a different color. Some of them blended in seamlessly with the rest, and you could barely tell had been moved. Others, it was a little easier to tell, but the stones were still quite solidly in place... But that first hole remained, still.
Then, something happened that she never thought would ever happen again.
She heard the slow, tired footsteps of a boy who she could never forget.
The young woman waited with a fast-beating heart, cautiously watching him come up to her wall. Suddenly, he gave a half-hearted cry and sank down near her wall, not understanding, and not being able to understand. She didn't understand what was happening either, but she knew in her heart what she would do.
She moved the stones, she reached through the wall, and she held his hands.
They stayed like that for a long time.
Once upon a time, as it had to be, there was a young woman, who knew, really, that she had seen it all.