If Only She Knew

by Quin

He loved her, he realized, enough to put aside his miserly ways, his penny pinching, all those habits he had to save a penny, save a dime that drove her mad, with the revelation hitting him the day she'd moved and changed her number, his only contact now her email. There he stood in his thrift store furnished flat, polyester pants and shirt, holding the second-hand faux diamond ring with tape wrapped around it to make it fit, as his world collapsed, taking with it all of his need to control life by controlling money. He was a changed man, flinging out the old, bringing in the new, from clothes, to dishes, to the beautiful ring sitting by his elbow. She'd agreed to one meeting, with the understanding if he didn't answer this email in the next ten minutes, it was over, no more tries, and he labored over the reply, pouring out his heart, his love, his need and desire for her, begging her to see her changed Silas Marner. Yes, a new man; with one small exception. He simply couldn't see paying for the internet on his new computer since you could just as easily "borrow" someone else's connection and so it was, as he typed that letter to change his life, to make her his, as his fingers sped their way across the keyboard, five seconds left, his finger moves on the mousepad to place the cursor over send, rises up to tap it and the connecti

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Quin, author of One, is the nom de plume of a woman born and raised in New Orleans, who spent time in Colorado and later in Utah (where theater was discovered and taken to heart). Her children are loved forever, a terrier sleeps at her feet, and words ache to escape onto paper. Her version of life in New York is here.