“I love you too” I said before hanging up. Smiling to myself, I clutched the phone tightly and l laid my head on the pillow. I should be sleeping right now, according to Kayla, my best friend who also happens to be my makeup artist, but sleep was nowhere near. Gone was the 8 hour sleep schedule. My mind is playing its own version of tomorrow and I couldn’t help smiling like an idiot. Tomorrow’s the day. The biggest day of my life. I’m going to walk the aisle with Mark, my true love.

My mind ran back to the day I first met Mark, my first day in college. He was kind enough to invite the shy new girl to his soccer match but the arrogant girl never made up her mind to ditch her chess practices to attend a match of her least favorite sport. That’s an instance I regret deeply but a tiny spark from the back of my mind urged me to believe that was how it was supposed to be. That’s called fate. Everything happens for a cause, everything including Nicole his ex-girlfriend, my failure to get my hands on a job right after college and his car getting a flat tire when passing the city I was in were parts of my fate.

It was the first Monday of September 2 years ago and I was trying hard not to cry in the streets. My legs were hurting and I had to sit somewhere and gather myself together but as far as I could see, there was only a posh looking restaurant, a day care center and a garage in the lane. I thought about the last bit of money in my bank account and entered the restaurant. The warm smile on the waiter’s beautiful face did little to heal my broken soul but it was enough to make me smile back. I had my head in my arms when the waiter returned with the cappuccino I had blindly ordered and I knew I had to get myself straight. I was on my way home from an interview for an auditing company which had gone bad from the moment it started. I spent an entire month hunting for jobs without much success. Some people didn’t even bother to call me for interviews and the ones who did couldn’t find the qualifications they require in me. I didn’t know what to do, I was sick of having hopes on job applications and I needed was to go home and have a soothing bath.

I heard the usual vibration sound of my phone, which was put on silent mode for the interview, but I did not want to check it out. It was probably Kayla checking out on my interview because she knew how desperate I was to get a job. However, ignoring a message was hardly on my list of skills. I pulled out my phone from the bag and surprisingly, the message was not from Kayla. It was from the mobile dating app I installed two months ago. Not only was my career life falling apart but my love life too. Flrtalert is a dating app that interacts with the location to find a matching partner which fascinated me. The message said Mark was 9 feet away but what held my gaze was the profile picture. It was a face I knew so well. My secret crush from college. I never got an opportunity to talk with him after the day he invited me to come to his soccer mach. That was years ago but his face was still able to make my heart skip a beat.

I looked around but the restaurant was almost empty except for an elderly couple in the corner. I looked through the window but I couldn’t see the familiar face. I kept gazing out of the window while my mind tried to answer the questions that were popping up one after the other. Why is he on flrtalert? Is he single? What happened to Nicole? Or was it somebody else using his picture? Did he get a message about me? The last question glued me to the spot with fear. He can’t be possibly searching for a girl like me, right? I was waiting for a sound from heaven to say “right” but all I heard was a bright “hi”.

I knew what I had to do; turn to my right where the voice came from, look at his face (it was a male for sure) and say “hi”. I do not know how many minutes or hours had passed and after what it felt like an eternity, I managed to smile faintly with my secret crush from college.

The chat went smooth and I got to know that he got a flrtalert message about me when he had come to the garage to fix his flat tire. After a long time, I had a great time and surprisingly, I was not hesitant to mention it to him. He seemed to be glad about it and I could not help smiling like an idiot the whole day.

Days and months passed by and I knew my life was changing. I found a job in a book store in November and I met Mark frequently, as friends of course. His relationship with Nicole had ended up in a disaster and he was very understanding when I told him that I do not want to rush anything. With time we became lovers and I started believing in true love.

We were on a date in the same restaurant that brought me to him two months ago, when he got down on his knees asking for my hand in marriage and I felt like jumping up and down like a 4 year old hearing the news about going to Disneyland. Things happened pretty quickly after that and now, here I am trying to sleep out my last day as a bachelor.