...
Ever since I first met you, love, I knew that you were different from the rest of them.
The new manager is walking past my office door, his arm around the shoulders of a thin young man with dark, messy hair. I have paperwork to give him so I call his name.
“Hugo!”
He and his friend pause just beyond my door and then Hugo turns back and pokes his head through my door.
“Yes, Alice?”
I motion to the papers and he comes in and collects them. His friend, meanwhile, has moved to stand in my doorway. Rather handsome, that one. I wonder why he’s here?
Hugo, looking up from the paperwork, notices me eyeing his friend and clears his throat.
“Oh, yeah, introductions. Alice, this is my cousin, Al. Al, this is Alice Warner.”
The young man comes forward and shakes my hand, a small smile on his face.
“Hi. How are you?” he asks. But before I can answer with more than a smile, Hugo interrupts.
“Al is interning here for a while. We thought it would be good for him to experience… office life.”
Hugo and Al exchange looks, and I get the feeling that I’ve missed some private joke between them. Then Hugo turns that smile on me, the smile that has Karen in the office next door swooning over him.
“Well, we need to get going, Alice. I was just showing Al here around, getting him acquainted with the place. There’ll be plenty of time for socializing over the water-cooler later.”
Al smiles that tiny, crooked smile again.
“Well… See you later, then.”
And he follows his cousin out of my office, leaving me wanting to know him better.
Our co-workers thought you had some mental handicap when you struggled with the office appliances, but I found your helplessness endearing. You didn’t even understand how to work the fax machine, but I knew you weren’t unintelligent.
I hear muttered curses as I walk down the hall.
“Merlin’s pants! What is wrong with this thing? Good Godric Gryffindor, I feel like a bloody flobberworm!”
I look around. The new guy that Hugo introduced me to last week, Al, is bent over the fax machine, his face screwed up with concentration. The strange exclamations I’ve been hearing are coming from between his clenched teeth.
Fighting the urge to laugh at his frustration, I walk forward.
“Need some help?”
He looks up, a look of immense relief in his eyes. I didn’t notice before, but they’re green.
“Yes, please!” he says gratefully.
Smiling, I ask him for the number he is trying to fax.
When you asked me out to dinner in gratitude, I was glad to accept. I hadn’t met such a polite, sweet man in years. We had a lovely time, laughing and talking. I never knew I could be so much like a person and yet have so little in common. I couldn’t get enough of you, and it seemed that you couldn't get enough of me. It didn’t take me very long to realize that I was falling in love with you. Then one day, you came to me, and I thought that we were through, you were so serious.
“Alice? I… I need to tell you something. We need to talk.”
My heart beats faster as I let Al in. He’s not meeting my eyes, staring at the carpet. Why is he here? Is he going to break up with me? Have I done something wrong? We sit down next to each other on the couch, and he still isn’t looking at me, instead focusing on his hands.
“Alice…”
My heart is breaking already. He’s never been like this before.
“Alice, I’ve never told you something… something about me.”
And now I’m worried. It seems he’s not breaking up with me after all, but what could he possibly have to tell me about himself that would make him so serious?
He finally looks up at me.
“Alice, I “ I am…”
I stare into those eyes, waiting for it… Whatever it is. Can he be a felon? Not possible! Married? I recoil at the thought. He can’t be! I bite my lip. Why do I always fall for the wrong guy?
“Yes?”
Al takes a deep breath.
“Alice. I am a wizard.”
I thought you were unhinged. Even after hours of explaining, I couldn’t help staring at you; loving you so much, and wanting so badly to believe you, but still sure that it couldn’t be true.
You knew that I didn’t believe you. You couldn’t prove it to me then, you said, because you weren’t allowed to ‘do magic’ in the middle of a ‘Muggle’ apartment building, but you asked me if I would meet you at Charing Cross Road the next day.
I went, because I loved you, because I wanted to help you out of your delusions. I went, not knowing what to expect.
Certainly, I didn’t expect what I got.
Al, holding my hand, leads down the street. Finally, we apparently arrive, but I don’t see what’s so special about this destination. I look at Al, party amused, partly sad. He wears an anxious expression.
“Do you trust me, Alice?”
After all this strange talk of magic, and wizards, and schools I’ve never heard of, and invisible worlds? I bite my lip. I want, so badly, to say that I trust him. It would have been true up until last night.
He sighs.
“Do you trust that I would never hurt you, Alice?”
I look him in the eyes. I almost think I can see his soul there.
I nod.
Still holding my hand, he steps forward. I close my eyes and allow him to tug me along.
Suddenly we were standing in a pub you called the Leaky Cauldron. You pulled me along, through the little pub, and out into the back. You tapped the wall with the wand you had shown me the night before, and the wall moved. And then the whole wizarding world was open to me. Or at least, Diagon Alley was.
I didn’t say a word as you showed me down the street, pointing to this or that and explaining it all to me ever so kindly. I didn’t say a word as we ate ice cream bought with fat gold coins, or when you opened up a book in the bookshop and showed me the moving illustrations. I didn’t say a word as you took me back through the Leaky Cauldron, as we rode the underground, or as you led me up to my apartment. I think you were getting worried by then.
“Alice?”
Al’s eyes are focused on mine. I blink at him.
“Alice? Please, say something! Are you all right?”
I stare at him. He really is a wizard. How have I gotten through my entire life without knowing that magic was real?
He’s pleading now.
“Alice! Please, Alice, say something! Please, Alice. Please.”
He’s got both of my hands in his. My hands are cold. His hands are warm. He brings our hands up to his face and presses his cheek against them.
Closing his eyes, his whispers, more to himself than to me, “I thought you trusted me.”
His voice breaks, and I’m shaken out of my shock. Oh, Al!
I clear my throat and he jumps and looks up.
“I do.”
He looks excited that I’m actually speaking, but confused by what I’ve said.
“What?”
I throw my arms around him.
“I do! I do trust you, Al! I trust you! I’ll always trust you.”
He is the one in shock for a moment, and then he squeezes me so tightly I can hardly breathe.
“You trust me?” he repeats. His voice is muffled.
I nod into his shoulder.
“I do.”
And now, I’m in a white gown, and I’m looking at you, standing there, across from me, as I say it again.
“I do.”