I can't remember it being so easy to talk to someone so quickly. I sat next to my friends at a dinner banquet, and a few minutes later she came in. Luck would have it that the chair next to me was empty. She sat beside me, brushed aside the hair that draped across her shoulder, and said hello. We had met once before, briefly, and it was good. I turned toward her to greet her, to return the hello.

I never turned back toward my friends.

Two straight hours, two straight hours at an end-of-the-year banquet, a social, a large gathering where everyone drinks, laughs, and shares war stories. Yet we spent the night Dinner for Two. Just talking, laughing, connecting, bonding. Two hours together, but she had to leave. She told me how she looked forward to the next time we'd get to see each other, get to talk. I felt the same, but I had no idea when I would see her again. I didn't get her number, and we won't have the chance to cross paths at these mutual gatherings for the next month. But it will happen. I will see this girl again. And when I do, I know we'll continue as though we never missed a moment, and I'll know this girl, and she'll know me.

And hopefully by that time, the invisible boyfriend will be a deceased character in her story.