TBT #30: On falling in love in the face of certain doom

“You’re breaking up with me?” Benjamin asked, shocked beyond belief. “But I thought everything was going so well!”

“I’m sorry,” said Veronica, quietly but directly. “There’s no way I can do this anymore.”

“But you told me you loved me!”

“Yes, I did,” she agreed, “but, honey, I think I may have been confused. I don’t think I loved you as much as I, well, didn’t really like you.”

“That…” he paused dramatically, “seems unlikely.”

“What did I tell you about the dramatic pauses? They’re not cool. They were never cool.”

“But… um, wait,” he stammered, “you must have found me attractive at one point! When the car was on fire!”

“When the car was on fire and careening towards the seemingly bottomless cliff and you said “It looks like things… are heating up’?”

“Yes, right, that!” he exclaimed.

“Not attractive.”

“How is that not attractive? It’s witty! And dry!”

“Yes, but, in retrospect, the car was on fire, the brakes were cut — maybe you should have been trying to put out the fire.”

He stared at her blankly for a few seconds. “Wait,” he said, “Okay. Maybe that wasn’t cool. But what about when we were being chased by the Serbian Rebels?”

“The ones after the true Shroud of Turin that they planned to use in some sort of evil religious ceremony?”

“Yeah! And we were skiing and they chased us down the mountainside and then something exploded for some reason and suddenly we were trapped under ice in some sort of pond and there was no way out and they were converging on our location! And then that submarine showed up and saved us and then —”

He was talking quickly, hardly stopping to breathe. “Ben,” she stopped him. “Doesn’t this seem like a weird way to talk about what was essentially our first date?”

“I don’t really understand.”

She sighed. “Okay, think about this rationally. The first time I ever saw you, you were taxiing down Fifth Avenue in a stealth bomber. There were fourteen guys on horseback chasing you!”

He smiled warmly. “Veronica,” he beamed. “You remembered the number of guys on horseback. That’s so sweet.”

She ignored him. “And THEN you realized you were out of fuel and that there was no way your fighter jet was going to be able to make it to Baghdad or wherever so you leaped out of the cockpit onto the roof of my car!”

He was still smiling, as the memories hit him. “I still remember the look on your face when you saw me through your sunroof. You were so surprised!”

“There was a man on the roof of my car!”

“And then you opened the roof for me and I said ‘Can I have a lift?’ And you let me in!”

“Yes, Benjamin. And then what happened?”

“We went to Baghdad.”

“We went to Baghdad in a hovercraft!”

“Hell Yeah we did!”

“And for most of the trip we were chased by a ninety-foot tidal wave started by the evil Serbian rebel alliance who had some sort of tidal-wave making machine.”

“Yes, ‘roni ” I know. I was there. It was totally awesome! You grabbed my arm so tight!”

“There were also men on jetskis shooting at us. I was scared!”

“But I protected you, Veronica. It’s why we’re so perfect for each other. We’ve already been through so much together.”

He was smiling again, oblivious. She sighed and put her hands on his shoulders, looking directly into his blue blank eyes.

“Ben,” she said calmly, “what we had was a wild adventure. It was insane and scary and bizarrely historically inaccurate, but it was just that ” an adventure. There’s no way such an odd situation could really work as a way for us to get to know each other.”

“Wait, c’mon” he tried, but Veronica stopped him, shushing his lips with a single finger. She placed a soft kiss on his forehead.

“I know it seems wrong somehow, sweetie. But you don’t know me. The real me. And I don’t know the real you. I want normal things. I want getting-to-know-you dinners and awkward moments with shy glances. I want first kisses at the door. I want flowers.”

He looked down at the floor. “I’ll get my things,” she told him, as she moved to step away.

“Wait, Veronica. Really wait,” he intoned strongly. “Look, maybe you’re right. But you and me ” we did something great! We stopped the Serbian Rebels who were actually just a front for this rich guy with a British accent from executing their plan! They were going to use the real Shroud of Turin and pieces of the original Apollo spacecraft in some sort of occult ceremony in the depths of Lenin’s tomb! Who knows what sort of disaster that could have brought about?!”

“I know, Ben, but that’s not enough,” she said, turning her back to him. “I hope we can be friends.”

His voice was wavering. “Veronica “” he put his hand on her shoulder. “Roni, don’t. Don’t say it doesn’t matter! Remember when we were in that helicopter crash together, and it looked like you weren’t going to make it. And I performed CPR and pounded on your chest and bellowed ‘YOU DON’T GET THIS ONE, GOD!’ to the sky and then you coughed up water and were okay for some reason? I don’t know what that means to you but to me it means that God wants us to be together!”

She didn’t look at him. “I don’t know what else to say, sweetie. I’ve told you all I can.”

“Oh god,” he choked. “I don’t know how I could ever meet a girl like you. Don’t you remember, Veronica? Don’t you remember how you got kidnapped by the evil guy with the British accent and his thug-like goons when I was busy defusing a nuclear bomb that would have decimated the world’s grain supply? But then I came for you! I busted down that guy’s door with a grenade launcher in each hand and I shot so many grenades ” god, so many grenades. I shot grenade after grenade for YOU, Veronica! And then only the British guy was left and he said ‘You’ll never stop me!’ And I just looked at him, paused, and said ‘Stop this’. And then I shot a grenade right at him!”

He leaned against her, pressing his face against her back. “I do remember, Ben, but it doesn’t change the way I feel.”

“But you kissed me,” he sobbed. “You kissed me right before we ran out of the crumbling ruins of the Sphinx that was his unlikely base of operations.”

His tears were soaking her blouse. “I know, I know,” she said, with an eye towards the door. “I hope we can be friends.”

Benjamin choked on his words. “Friends,” he asked, “to the extreme?”

She sighed and eyed the door. “If that makes you happy, Benjamin, then yes. Friends to the extreme.”

He pulled back, wiped his eyes, and coughed back the sobs. “Stellar,” he said, giving a weak thumbs up.