in the tropics

She lies alone in bed, stares in the darkness of the room and listens unwillingly to the howl of the snowstorm outside. She pulls the thick blanket over her neck as she feels a tad shivery. It is the middle of winter, and yet Ronnie's mind is in the tropics. Jason has been in her mind a lot.

She remembers him from forty years ago. He was the only one who looked her way, the handsome basketball player of the school team. He was tall and lithe and when he played he was so agile that his image is forever ingrained in her memory. Over the years, she has come to love watching basketball and it never failed that one or two players would remind her of him, the way he moved and sometimes even his looks. Tall men had been attracted to her even when she only stood at a little bit over 5 feet. Once, she dated one of the more popular basketball stars from the national league, but, however handsome and rich he was, he never measured up to what her perception of Jason was. She had heard that he had gone professional and longed to see him on television, remembering how he looked like when they were young: the soft soulful gaze of his eyes, the shy smile of his red lips, the awkward way he waved "hello" at her that day.

She has always wondered, as she still does, how it would have been. Why, when finding these old friends and classmates, it is him she longs to see again. Maybe now she won't be as shy to talk to him, unlike in high school. Maybe now she can make him laugh; maybe now she can find out what he is like right now.

And then there are the what if's. What if she was the go-getter that she had become? What if she had been bold enough and encouraged him more? What would it have been like to hold his hands. To gaze into his eyes. To kiss his lips. To feel his skin next to hers. To make love with him. There were so many possibilities that she would never know. And she longs to be back, so she would find out. All these years, it was Jason. The torch she thought was forgotten, a product of a brief flirting, a brief smile, a brief invitation. What if?

She lies in bed every night, thinking how it might have been with him. Was Jason the one that really got away?