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[3rd person pov, focus on josh]

What is this feeling called love? Why me? Why you? Why here? Why now? It doesn’t make no sense. No. It’s not convenient. No. It doesn’t fit my plans. No. It’s something I don’t understand. Oh. And as I stand and cross the room I feel as if my whole life has been leading to this one moment. And as I touch your shoulder tonight this room has become the centre of the entire universe. So what do I do?
- Feeling Called Love
Pulp

He didn’t know what he wanted to do, and so he remembers looking over the shoulder of the girl sitting next to him to see what she was writing.

‘When I grow up,’ she had written, ‘I’m going to get married and have babies and clean the house.’

He remembers thinking that he didn’t want to do that. So he wrote, ‘I’m going to have a good job and a nice wife who cooks for me.’

He was much older before he decided what this good job would be. From the time he was in high school, he was certain that he was going to pursue a career in politics.

It certainly wasn’t an easy aspiration to achieve, but he thinks that he’s accomplished most of his goal for now. But sometimes there’s this feeling that he’s been missing out on something.

As his friends from college had girlfriends, fell in love, and got married, he felt distanced from it all. It had never bothered him that much but occasionally arose from the back of his mind when he thought about what society and his parents would have liked him to achieve, that maybe he should have the wife, 2 kids and the house with the white picket fence. And he was almost entirely sure that it was only because they wanted this life for him that it worried him at all.

But he’s older now, and is beginning to think that he would like it for himself.

He’s got a girlfriend, someone he has been seeing for longer than his average two dates. He thinks that that should count for something.

But he’s no longer sure.

They go out for meals, to bars, to parties, and even plan to take a vacation together. They have sex and that’s not bad, either. But he thinks that there might be more to life. Especially since he’s certain he has no plans to marry Amy.

He’s recently discovered what real love is. Or at least, what he thinks love is.

And he feels like now he knows what he’s been missing in his life.

It sounds as though this discovery of love should be a relief, only it’s not.

It’s not the simple feeling he expected. The heavens don’t sing, shooting stars don’t fill the night skies, and he’s goddamn sure that the flowers don’t smell any more appealing.

Instead, he’s left in a hazy uncertainty as she nears him, disorientated as he attempts to urge her memory from his mind, panicked as he wonders who can see through his façade of nonchalance.

He doesn’t think that she knows, and why should she?

He wishes that he could have fallen for someone else, but then he has no wish to change the feeling. He has this idea that things could be less complicated, but then he lives for the challenge. And it gets all confused in his mind as he thinks more about it. His thoughts and his fascination with her swirl around in his head and his girlfriend is forgotten. And it’s all too much for him to cope with.

It’s not convenient. He should have fallen in love with his girlfriend, with Amy. Then the confusion and the potential problems would be lessened.

But he isn’t in love with Amy. He knows that, and he has no desire to change it. All he can do is tell Amy the truth. That he knows that it’s not working out.

He doesn’t look forward to it. He hopes that she, too, can see it. That the moment won’t become awkward as she asks for reasons why he decided at that particular moment to end it with her.

As it turns out, his fear of this moment is unnecessary. She is not invested in the relationship enough for it to deeply affect her, although neither is she entirely content with his decision. She questions briefly his conclusion and he mumbles some line about it not being right. She wonders aloud if it has anything to do with his assistant, and when he lies and claims that it has nothing to do with Donna, he can see that she is not convinced.

He doesn’t tell her the truth, he suspects that she knows it already.

When asked, he lies and informs his friends that Amy broke it off with him, for he knows that the questions will be easier to answer. He dislikes lying to his friends, but the alternative is a far worse prospect.

It is several weeks before he confesses the truth to his friend. Sam does not laugh as expected, neither is he shocked. An enigmatic smile upon his lips, Sam asks what he wants to do.

He does not know. He doesn’t even know if he wants to tell her and he certainly doesn’t want the others to know.

Sam tells him that he should tell her. That he might be surprised by the response.

He is unsure. They end the conversation, nothing decided, little achieved.

It is a few weeks later and a late night when he enters his office to see her sitting at his desk. She is asleep, her head on the files she attempted to read through. He watches her for a moment, a voyeur to the unexpected scene. But he cannot bring himself to walk away, or even to wake her and tell her to go home.

He is transfixed and he knows that he has to do something.

In the end what he does is touch her shoulder and gently shake her awake.

She is confused briefly, in a bewildered state between awake and asleep and does not know where she is. He tells her that she fell asleep, that he will take her home since she is too tired to drive.

She tries to object but her reasoning is interrupted by a yawn and he knows he has won.

As they talk during the ride to her house - she half-asleep, unguarded, he aware and contemplative - he knows that he should come to a decision. He is conscious that in her sleepy fog she might not fully comprehend his words should he decide to tell her the truth. And this is an appealing idea since while he expects it, he fears the rejection.

But still he wavers. The advantages and disadvantages of telling her that he loves her, or at least thinks he might, weigh in his head.

It is as he stops and lets her out the car that he comes to a decision. But he hesitates again.

He prepares to drive off, then changes his mind.

He calls out her name.

THE END

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