How I Fell In Love On Tuesday, March 28th, 2017 At 6:53pm

A mild, warm banter filled the room. A collection of special friends and family gathered for Cristian and Caitlyn’s wedding, who were known by nearly everyone as the perfect couple. Tonight was their rehearsal dinner, and as Cristian gazed out across the faces of those who enriched their lives, a calming sigh came over him. The kind when you pause for a moment, captivated by gratitude, where you can’t help but reflect on all the goodness around you, yet all the body can physically muster is an endearing smile and a brief release of breath. Yet that sigh, in its simplicity, is nothing short of the best way to express how happy you are.       

He turned to his partner, the woman beyond his wildest dreams. Their love was, and always would be, the kind that fairy tales are written about, he thought to himself. He reached and placed his hand on top of hers; rested on her thigh, thinking that tomorrow he would place a ring on one of those fingers and give himself to her for every remaining day of his life. At his touch she turned and met his gaze, feeling the rush of his love fill her body; while he stared into their future together that reflected in the hazel of her eyes.

Removing his hand, he picked up his glass of champagne and stood. Some recognized this and hushed immediately, while the majority of the room took a few more moments to catch on. He didn’t, however, speak right away, but instead allowed himself to stay lost in bliss.

“As many of you know,” Cristian finally spoke, “I often use five words when two will do, and sometimes am heavy on my speeches. So I will try to keep this long and sweet.” He paused; a handful of people got the joke. He pulled at his collar, “tough crowd, haha.” More people laughed. 

“No, in all seriousness, this is my wedding, and this is my toast, and it’s me we’re talking about. And also I’m nervous, as anyone would be, so you’ll just have to deal with it.” Even more people laughed. “When I tried to think, to plan out, what I would say at this, well … there’s really only one thing I can say.” Turning to Caitlyn, he smiled and she smiled back. A younger girl sitting near the front awed out loud.  

Turning back to the general crowd at hand, “many say that love happens over time. That it is planted, that it grows, and that it eventually blooms into something so beautiful, it is simply beyond words. It is a sum of moments, and in many cases this is true, and often is exactly how two people fall in love.”

“But for me,” facing again towards his fiancé, “it happened all at once. I know exactly when I fell in love with you. I know with every fiber in my soul the day, in fact, the very moment when I fell in love with you.” Stopping for emphasis, he could see that Caitlyn was both curious and completely unsure where he intended to go with this charade. “You see, I fell in love with you on Tuesday March 28th, 2017, at 6:53pm.”  

“I doubt you remember exactly what was happening at that time, to make it such a special moment for me, so let me describe what led to this moment so that you can understand. We met,” addressing the crowd again, their faces lifted in anticipation, “doing something we both love: working out. We were, simply put, both really into the gym. We enjoyed fitness, and being active, and by fateful chance were both members at the same gym.”  

Caitlyn nodded her head and shrugged her shoulders in bashful agreement, a slightly coy smile taking over her face. She of course now knew this part of the story, having been there personally, but would always claim she tells a more accurate version, with truer details than her other half. She decided, however, to let him tell it his own way, given that this was amounting to a speech which, in all fairness, would probably be the speech they’d have to share in memory for the rest of their lives. 

“Now I wouldn’t go so far to say we were obsessive health nuts,” pausing to chuckle, considering everyone in the crowd knew that was in fact exactly what they were, “but on one, super fateful day, after many times of quietly staring from afar―which I had hoped you never noticed, because I didn’t want you to think of me as a stalker.”

Caitlyn chimed in jokingly, “I noticed all the time! Eventually I felt bad for you so I let you get away with it!” More people in the crowd giggled.

“Yes, well I suppose it worked out for me in the end,” Cristian joked back. “But on this one day, we did finally happen to bump into each other, somehow by the grace of God in a surprisingly not so awkward way, and I finally had the spur of the moment courage to introduce myself. Now, how on Earth I was able to convince you in this chance crossing to give me your number, to this day I still have no idea. But you did. And we talked. And then a few days went by and we still talked. And then you agreed to let me take you out on our first date.”

Turning back to the crowd, shaking his finger in a sarcastic fashion, “I did not fall in love with you on our first date. It was pleasant, and I know you enjoyed yourself, but I did not find myself head over heels just yet. But I know you did have a good time, because about two weeks later you came, willingly I might add, out on our second date. However! I still did not fall in love with you then. I didn’t even fall in love with you at our first kiss, which as you probably remember was a casually horrible first kiss at the end of our second date.” Cristian gave his fiancé a smirk, which made her blush. Her mind flashed back to that time, which is a part of this story he tells very accurately. It was, in fact, a horrible first kiss. But it was horrible in a cute-horrible kind of way; the kind that made her think that he was interested in her for real but just nervous, and that she was willing to give him a second chance at it. The second kiss was pretty damn good.

“But no. I fell in love with you shortly after. Soon after our second date, we met up and were passing the time together doing something, somewhere, which I don’t remember anymore. What and where we were doing, whatever it was that we were doing, honestly isn’t important to me anymore.” With saying this, Cristian’s expression turned from the silly tone he had held and broke into a deeper, sincere quality. 

“What is important to me is that it was a Tuesday. Tuesday, March 28th, 2017.” He completely stopped, giving more than a brief pause to indicate that this was the part of the story that mattered, that this was the kicker to the whole speech.

“And at 6:52pm, I did something. Or I said something,” he shrugged nonchalantly. “Sometimes I truly wish I could recall this moment, this thing I did or said, but I can’t. But I do know the reason why I have since forgotten. The reason is that whatever I did or said at 6:52pm, it was funny enough that at 6:53pm, you laughed.”

“And don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I hadn’t witnessed you laugh before then. During the time we spent together; from stalking, talking, two dates and a kiss…you had laughed from time to time. But during those weeks and dates and moments your laugh was, moreover, calculated. Almost like a nervous laugh, even if you weren’t nervous. Like the kind when you’re with someone who you enjoy, maybe even like, but it’s still new and awkward and you feel like you have to laugh. When you haven’t emotionally connected enough yet, so when you laugh it’s more of a ‘small talk laugh’.”

“But on that special day in March, you laughed, and it was the most genuine thing I have ever witnessed. For the first time, I saw your soul. This laugh, your giggle, was such a raw outburst of truth. Not that it was an enormous roar of hilarious gut-busting laughter either. It was more like you didn’t even realize you’ve chuckled until you’ve already broken character, and you just relax and let your natural expression reveal itself in its own way. This came from within you. I observed it born from somewhere within, rise through your lungs and finally emerge into your being. In this momentary laugh, your guard was down, and you completely and unequivocally exposed yourself, your real self. As if your lips cracked into a smile so beautiful and pure, it personified happiness itself.”

“So when, at 6:53pm on Tuesday March 28th, 2017, you laughed, I fell in love.”

“And at 6:54pm, my heart was so engaged in your beautifully genuine being, my mind had gone blank. I had irreversibly and forever forgotten everything I was doing and saying … for no thought or wish or desire or hunger or pain or joy or reason or truth could ever resonate in my soul the same way anymore. All that mattered then was that I had fallen in love. And every moment and every breath I have ever been lucky enough to live since 6:54pm on Tuesday March 28th, 2017, to this very moment and breath I stand in now, I have been numbed to all other things. Never once in all those moments and breaths have I ever been so consumed by any other thing beyond this one simple fact.”

Stopping one last time, his gaze turned into tunnel vision, aimed at the woman he was directing his words towards, only to see tears blinking their way down her cheeks, “that on Tuesday March 28th 2017 at 6:53pm, you laughed, you opened your soul to me, and I fell in love.”