As he stands there, waiting in the warm summer sun of Southern California, his phone pings with the announcement "heeere". Turning around, he sees what must be the prettiest woman he had ever seen, at least from a dating app anyways. Her crystal blue eyes meet his as she walks up, and he knows that something is different.
Walking around the downtown of the small coastal village, the two just seem to hit it off, every conversation, every phrase, every word just hit home. For the moment, neither of them seemed to be bothered by circumstance, or by the fact that neither of them should be where they were or the certainty of having to split paths in the near future; if these were normal times at least. Now of course, these were not normal times, so all that mattered were the palm trees waving in the wind, setting the stage for this tragedy.
Arriving at the beach, she asks him carefully whether he would like to join her walk for a little bit. His jeans get soaked by the high tide of the Pacific Ocean, which was dumping one wave after the next into the fine sand. She offers to switch sides, considerate as she is, but he is too stubborn to admit his discomfort. While they talk, nothing else seems to matter to either of them.
Later on, she wants to drive them to a less public setting to watch the sunset. Walking up to her car, her phone lights up. Emergency! She must leave immediately. Apologizing multiple times, she hugs him, promising she will reach out and spend time with him another time.
Laying in her bed later on this fateful night, staring at her phone, she cannot seem to find words for a coherent and apologetic message. Although conflicted by her feelings and the knowledge of limited chances for finding long-term romance, she dims the light and tries to sleep. Wondering "what might be going through his head?" is the last thing she remembers, before gliding into a short and unrestful night, interrupted by nightmares and noises her roommates make.
It could not have been more than six hours later when she was wide awake, speculating that it must be right around sunrise, judging from the streams of light bursting through the little gap in her curtain. Going out and sitting on the porch and listening to the birds chirp their daily wakeup calls, she keeps getting caught in the repeated what-if in her head.
Flying back to her new home many weeks later, she sheds a tear. Why did he never contact me again? Was he not that into me after all? Her frustration becomes apparent when the baby two rows in front of her starts crying again. Slamming her fist onto the seat in front of her, she wakes up an unfortunate and now slightly confused old lady resting there.
"My dear, what is it?", the lady asks, carefully listening to every word of the answer that followed. "Sometimes," the lady with consideration as to not upset the young woman any further, "what is meant to be will not pass you by, you cannot stop it; and sometimes if it is just not meant to be, you cannot force it." This apparently strikes a nerve in the young woman who cries out in despair, "So what can I do?"
Comforting the distressed girl until she finally falls asleep, the lady thinks back to missed chances and broken promises in her own life. As she writes down this very story you are reading, the man who the pitiful young woman cried about, decides to have a drink again. Feeling the sweet taste of whiskey on his tongue for the first time after two and a half years, he leans back in acceptance of the inglorious decision he just made, knowing with utter certainty the mayhem to come.
Looking back on his phone, he thinks about the girl he met one last time, silently cursing her name for never calling him again. Befogged by drink, he does not remember the clock striking six, and neither does he recall the newscaster reporting the drama unfolding many thousand miles away, which crushed the once so brightly shining glimmer off hope to love for both of them forever.
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