Red Lights

     The average length of a red light is three-point-five minutes. This story should only last as long as you sit in your car, waiting for that red light to change, for the turbulence of life to resume, wasting away one red light at a time. Most of the time, these pauses in our journey are exempt from anything out of the ordinary. But every once in a while, you have that person that imperceptibly slips into your life by way of these life pauses, these red lights. Now, as you waste away for another red light, you have no way of knowing that the next three-point-five minutes will be accentuated for the rest of your red-light-filled life.
     Yellow light. Ease up on the gas and use your big toe to gently push the brake pedal, imperatively bringing the car to a stop. You're the cynical type that believes in the bad in people. You're the type that can reproach these yellow lights for slowing you down in life. You would never give any intimation that deep down, you're actually scared. You know it's not the traffic lights that set your boundaries.
     Red light. It's only you, and it's only ever been you that's held you back. And the next three minutes, twenty-eight seconds will have corroborated your fear because this was one of those life-pauses that brings someone into your life rather than lets you waste away.
     She pulled up beside you, the silver-purple paint of her 2001 Honda Civic peeling like a sunburn. The sparkle from the rainbow-maker toy that hung from her rearview mirror caught your eye and caused you to look in her direction. All you could do was stare at her for the next two minutes, fifty-four seconds.
     She was breath-taking, not because she was beautiful, even though she was. She was breath-taking because you had seen her before. From her red and purple and black hair to her bright blue eyes to her green summer dress to her fingers drumming on the dashboard to a song you couldn't hear, you recognized her. It was Katherine.
     It was the girl you let get away. It was the girl that was the very embodiment of joy. She was the sun and you were the moon. She brought levity to even you, the pessimist. She was deft in all the ways you were not. And even though you were polar opposites, the feelings of affection you felt towards each other were reciprocal. If you had to choose a color for her, you'd say golden. The way everything looks just when the sun rises, casting its light on everything. That was her. And you were the moon.
     And you let her get away.
     Twenty-one seconds. You made her cry when you told her how your day went.
     Eighteen seconds. You were never as excited as you should have been when she presented you with another of her paintings.
     Fifteen seconds. Now she's looking at you from her Honda Civic. She's gaping incredulously at you and her fingers have stopped drumming.
     Twelve seconds. Those blue eyes are brighter than the sky and drive as deep.
     Ten seconds. You could stare into those eyes for hours. And you have.
     Nine… eight. Those eyes saw that you didn't want to be pessimistic.
     Seven… six… five. She saw that you were scared.
     Four. You are scared. You're scared of yourself.
     Three. And she wanted to help you. She saw in you what you never saw in yourself.
     Two. And you pushed her away.
     One.
     Green light. Life moves forward. The chaos resumes and the wasting away, well it's never really stopped. Release the brakes and push on the gas. That's what you're supposed to do. But for the moment, it's just you and her. Every wistfully painful memory comes flooding back to you as the cars behind you start honking. Katherine snaps out of it first. Green means go.
     Just like that, and she's out of your life again. Release the brakes and push on the gas. Drive away. Drive away because life is moving forward without you. And right now, all you can think is that it was never those red lights that stopped you.