When her husband, Donny, had just had his accident Leah believed that he would recover. She brought him home when the doctors said she could. She fed him, talked to him, changed his pajamas and his sheets, and maintained his personal hygiene. But as time went by, it became more and more apparent that he was not improving; that the love of her life was gone to her now.
Donny had been hit from behind while waiting at a red light. He had been on his way home from work, with a dozen yellow roses and a bottle of wine in the back seat as Leah prepared their anniversary dinner. Five years together as husband and wife plus four before that as college sweethearts. Donny had been her first boyfriend, her first lover, and the only boy or man that ever gave her that pitter-patter in her heart. An unworn seatbelt, a snapping of the neck, and the slamming of the head against the steering wheel had changed Donny forever. He was alive, but little more than a mechanism; unaware of the significance of his surroundings, just a breathing organism that could do little more than react to stimulus with the motor-activity section of his brain. The rest had been too damaged to ever function again.
As time went by, both Donny's parents and her own urged her to put him in managed care. The insurance settlement had assured him care for so long as he survived and had left her with enough to live comfortably for the rest of her own life. After eight months of caring for Donny 24/7, she was finally exhausted and hopeless enough to agree to put him in a facility where his needs would be met.
She had quit her job as a dental assistant when Donny was injured, and had little desire to go back to that. When her visits to Donny no longer felt like enough to fill her days, she signed up for classes. At the gym, at the local college; anything to occupy her mind and challenge her to think about things other than the horrible turn her life had taken and the undeserved fate of the love of her life.
* * * *
Lars Karsten had the world by the tail. Migrating to America in his early twenties, he had landed a job with a major aircraft manufacturer and worked his way up from a mundane job in quality control to being a department head in the experimental division. Marriage, citizenship, children, and a house in the suburbs had all followed as Lars pursued his version of the American Dream.
It all came tumbling down as the economy crumbled. The experimental department was closed, the job was lost, the house was lost, and finally the marriage itself evaporated in front of his eyes. Left with no job, no credit, and no wife, but with plenty of bills and child-support payments, Lars had turned to his new country for help. He signed up for a Federal program to retrain out-of-work Americans and began his college career at the local community college, compliments of Uncle Sam. He would become an American accountant.
And that is where Lars and Leah met. A neon-lit classroom, an endlessly boring lecture, a first glance; and a second glance met by her second glance. Then Lars shrugging his shoulders and rolling his eyes as if to say, "Why are we sitting here listening to this idiot?" And a smile from Leah and a returned look as if to say, "I know, can you believe this?"
Lars sought her out after the class and clumsily introduced himself. There was something about this woman that filled him with hope. And Leah saw in Lars a reflection of her own sadness in life. A brave front for the world; but just behind that a despair that was transmitted only through the eyes. Those beautiful, penetrating blue eyes.
* * * *
From there, they developed a friendship. They would often sit next to each other in class, and before midterms they met in the student union one evening for a study date. More study dates followed, first at the student center, then at Leah's home. Study dates became study and dinner, then dinner and a movie without the studying.
Leah found Lars fascinating. His Scandinavian upbringing lent him a slight air of mystery. Although their friendship was completely platonic, she often found herself thinking of Lars in other ways. She wondered if, being from Europe, he was circumcised. That led her to thinking about what his penis might look like, which led to a stirring in her loins, which led to her feeling guilty, which led her to push those thoughts from her head. She was still a married woman, even if she couldn't share any part of her life with her husband.
Lars found Leah enchanting. So beautiful. So warm. So saddened by the loss of her husband. He, too, felt stirrings for her, but was afraid for his heart to enter into another relationship so soon after his marriage had fallen apart. They both were content to have a close friend, albeit a friend that each found emotionally and sexually attractive.
Then one evening it happened. Sitting on Leah's couch, they had just finished a pizza and each had downed a large glass of red wine. They were watching a corny movie with Cameron Diaz, and had talked and joked about it most of the way through it. Lars had the remote on the arm of the couch to his left, and Leah kept asking for it so she could turn the stupid movie off. Lars refused her, laughing and telling her that it was the greatest movie he had ever seen. Finally, she reached across him with her right hand for the remote, and as she grabbed it his hand landed on hers, and they both just froze with the touch of hand on hand, skin on skin. If she hadn't turned her head for that brief moment, it wouldn't have happened. But she did.
She turned and looked at Lars, her face only inches from his. Then the most natural thing in the world happened; their faces moved towards each other; their lips met; their eyes closed; their hearts raced. Both found themselves melting into the kiss, unaware of anything but the closeness of the other. Leah's lips parted and Lars' tongue found his way to hers. Arms went around each other, tongues gently caressed, Leah pressed herself into Lars and he could feel her ample breast against his muscled chest.
Suddenly, Leah pulled away.
"I'm sorry," she said, her face still only inches from Lars'. "I can't go there. I'd like to, but I can't. I'm still married." She pulled herself away and sat back on her side of the couch.
Lars completely understood. He had felt stirrings for Leah, but was still convinced that it was best for both of them if their relationship remained platonic. He wasn't ready for the complications of a relationship, and from their conversations, he knew that Leah was still unresolved over how to move forward in her life with a husband who was incapacitated.
"I understand," he told her softly. "It wasn't right of me to do that."
But Leah wasn't sure that it had been only him and in fact, it had not. It was an action that they had participated in equally. The kiss was not unwanted by either of them, and each had moved towards the other when the moment arrived. And each had felt the surge from the kiss; the racing of the heart, the swelling of the chest, the comfort of the closeness.
"It wasn't wrong of you," Leah responded. "I just can't let myself go down that path. It's not that I didn't like it. I did. But I'm still married, Lars, and for now, at least, I still feel that I have to stay true to my vows."
"I understand completely," Lars said, looking into her eyes. "And I respect that." He looked at her for a moment. "Let me give you a hug, then," he said in his slight accent, "and we'll go back to just being friends."
She leaned into him, and they hugged.
"I do care for you, Lars. I really do, just not like that." They both knew it was a lie.