Rum and Cokes

I don't drink rum and cokes. I never have, really, except for one autumn afternoon that I've never quite been able to shake.

I found myself at a bar with a boy I liked. When the bartender asked what I wanted, there was no hesitation, no deliberation. Rum and coke, I heard myself say, as if the words had been waiting in my mouth all along. To this day I couldn't tell you why. I didn't even like rum.

But I ordered another. And then another.

Over the course of that long, slow afternoon, I fell in love with that boy. Quietly, completely, the way you fall into something you don't notice until you're already in it.

Some moons later he broke my heart, of course.

I haven't touched a rum and coke since that afternoon. Not because I'm avoiding the drink, I never much cared for it anyway. But because some things are only meant to happen once. And that afternoon, with that boy, with that ridiculous drink in my hand, it was perfect.

It was perfect and it was over before it started. I just didn’t know it then.