Unanswered Prayer

by Samantha Hayes

His neck was long and lean with a perfectly groomed hairline. There was a distinct absence of moles, freckles, or scars on that oh-so-luscious neck. It was just smooth and brown, perfect for trailing my fingers along.

Only my fingers never got to explore that fabulous neck. Instead, my eyes took in every detail Wednesday after Wednesday when they were supposed to be watching a wizened little professor cover a whiteboard with the intricate details of American history. I'd stare at that neck day after day in the dining hall line. I'd fantasize about leaning over and kissing it when I happened to sit behind it in the pew at church.

Oh, how I loved that neck and the boy attached to it.

It'd been eight years since I'd seen that neck. Eight years of heartbreak, happiness, and moving on. But suddenly that neck was in front of me again, and my heart raced as I gripped my husband's hand tightly. Could it really be that neck attached to that boy?

My husband gave me a perplexed look when I called out another man's name: "James!"

The neck turned around, revealing the rest of my college fantasies. James's face broke into a confused smile and he squinted a moment before saying my name in bewilderment.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, my heart thudding while my mind raced to process this unbelievable coincidence. Was I hallucinating? How could James possibly be standing in front of me, thousands of miles and almost a decade away from our last meeting?

"What are you doing here?" he replied, and then he laughed his easy laugh and gave me a hug.

I thrilled to the embrace and hoped my husband didn't notice my blush. Despite our years together we had never discussed past relationships and he had no idea that James often inhabited my dreams. At least once a month, sometimes more, I'd wake up from a James dream and be shocked to find Cameron in my bed. I'd orient myself and be ashamed. I love my husband. I should be dreaming about him. I shouldn't be dreaming about lost loves that weren't.

I didn't think I'd ever see James again, though I'd spent years trying to get him out of my head. I never expected to see him thumping overgrown watermelons at my local grocery store. Yet here he was, in the flesh.

"Kiss him, kiss him!" My friend Tracy chanted the words every time she knew I was going to torture myself by hanging out with James. I wanted to follow her advice. I wanted to close my eyes, lean over, and just let go. I couldn't. I knew it would ruin our friendship and I'd lose any chance I ever had of holding his heart in my hands, or running my fingers along that perfect neck.

James was the most sought-after bachelor on our little college campus. The girls swooned over him, much to his embarrassment. He was modest and kind, two attributes that only added to his charm. As the girls lined up and begged for his attention, he backed away from the limelight. He didn't want declarations of love and surprise kisses. He wanted someone he could trust, someone who wouldn't demand anything from him. At the risk of breaking my own heart, I provided that for him. By the end of our sophomore year we were inseparable. All the girls were jealous of me and some even speculated that we were engaged, despite my tell-tale empty ring finger. They had nothing to be jealous of. I was paralyzed by shyness and fear of losing James. I would never reveal my crush and James knew it. Instead, I would claim Bonnie Raitt's "Something To Talk About" as my theme song, fervently praying that one day soon we'd give the whole campus a big something to talk about.

Obviously, it never happened. By the time senior year rolled around, Tracy and I were sharing an apartment and she was bored with my all-consuming James crush. James crashed on our couch almost every weekend, eating our peanut butter and dirtying our dishes. I never had the gumption to tell him to go buy his own damned peanut butter, even after it became abundantly clear I was being used. "Use me!" my heart screamed. I still held out hope that if we just spent enough time together he'd fall madly in love with me and carry me off into the sunset in his old Chevy Malibu.

I held out hope right up until the day he handed me an ad for a job in a far-away state. "This is perfect for you!" he said without a hint of inner turmoil. I felt as if I'd been slapped. He wasn't moving to a far-away state, but he didn't care if I went? A little piece of my soul died. I stopped stocking my shelves with peanut butter and James never even noticed. I moved away and never called or wrote, but he still haunted my dreams.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" I asked my husband for the fifth time in a row.

He had no idea how dirty I felt. I was eight months pregnant but that didn't matter. I was sure that if my husband wasn't along I'd end up having an affair with James. He'd take one look at my rotund belly and suddenly understand that he had given up a family that I could have provided for him. He would declare that I was the only woman he'd ever loved and I must bear his children. I needed my husband to keep me from running off into the sunset.

My husband?

He had no clue. He was sending me off to fight lions but he saw nothing more than a tame kitty cat. How could I tell him that I was off to meet with a man I had never gotten over? I couldn't, so I pretended we were just old friends and went on my merry way.

After our meeting in the local grocery store, James and I quickly figured out that we were living in the same town. A coffee date was set for the next week and my husband was happy I'd have the chance to get out of the house and meet up with a friendly ghost from my past. My world was madly churning around me and my husband didn't even hand me a life jacket.

As I sat across from James in that non-descript Starbucks, Bonnie Raitt's voice was slowly drowned out by Garth Brooks and his wise country words: "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."

While I'd become a raging liberal feminist, James had morphed into a Bush-loving conservative. While I'd spent the last several years working as a youth advocate, he'd been lobbying for big oil. Through the course of our conversation it became abundantly clear that though this was the same James I knew and thought I'd loved, this was a man I most certainly would not want for a husband. As we laughed about old times and shared scraps of gossip about old school friends, the James I wanted to kiss wilted away. My husband had nothing to fear. There would be no clandestine affair. There probably wouldn't even be another coffee date. We had nothing in common other than memories and size 9 shoes.

Meeting James again after all those years was the best thing that could have happened to me. The James dreams have stopped. The James longing has stopped. I no longer wonder what might have happened if life had taken a different turn all those years ago. I don't even want to consider the implications of what my life would be like if James and I had decided to venture down a romantic path instead of keeping it strictly platonic. I'm finally able to put the away the past and live fully in the present. My husband and Zach Braff are the only men who inhabit my dreams these days.

But I still would like to have a small taste of that perfect neck.