Pay-per-click 4

I don't know a great deal about Jenny. What I know I found out through, well, call it stalking, call it observation. I know who her friends are. Her life schedule, her interests.
It did take hours and hours. And Mr Google did what he could but there are so many Jennifer Simpsons in this world, it is no joke, this obssession of mine. And I wish I could say now, calmly, "the moment has passed", but it has not, by a long way.
I have moved on somehow. When I fell in love with that woman I didn't know the difference between sweep rowing and sculling, or a quad and a four, or a double and a pair.
I know the difference know. I've taken to rowing. After reading so much about the milieu I decided that rowers were a very dedicated bunch and it was worth checking that scene out.
Dedicated indeed they were, as well as a tightly knit socially. But meanwhile I got deeper and deeper into cycling, and that is a much hotter burn.
I've heard about rowers practically going blind during competition, due to all oxygen going to the legs, and not enough going to the brain. Now that must burn. I don't think I'll ever reach that stage.
On the downside there is a lot of hanging around. Waiting for some tardy crew member. It's a bit like playing in a band, or travelling with a big group. You travel at the average speed of the group, never faster.
With cycling there is less hanging around, you get on your bike and your off somewhere down hilly Surrey and Kent. A few laps around Richmond Park. A night ride in London, up to Hampstead Heath to look at the beautiful skyline, then down to Primrose Hill for some of the same and with a bit of luck catch some live music if some neo-hippies happen to have a strummable acoustic guitar.
Then off to the 24 hour bagel shop. By then it could be 2am, the places starts to heave with clubbers coming back from Old Street and your head is so full of oxygen it's unreal, I'm more or less in the same state as the clubbers, except they've done drugs and I've been riding.
I took up sport as a substitute for drugs anyway, so it's a fair exchange and I'm where I want to be, takes some work to get there, but it's the same high without the come down, although you can take anti-come down drugs nowadays, that pad your crash landing. Cheats!
Five hours have gone by.
I lie in bed, hair dripping wet. Staring at the ceiling and thinking about Jenny.
I asked her out three times. Three times she declined. Not before opening the most beautiful and engaging smile. It melted me.
God it took a Herculean effort to get off my bum, walk up to her and ask if she was doing anything that weekend. It was as if I was in a dream where some kind of force kept pulling me back and it was near impossible to move forward. Still, I went all the way up to her and asked.
She was doing her streches and stared at me in disbelief. Time froze. Then the smile. I took a deep breath, my eyes must have been staring wildly. A relieved "I thought you would never ask" look on her face but she said "I'm going rowing this weekend."
"Uh, ok", I replied and started turning away, shell shocked.
"Thank you for asking" she replied before getting back to her stretches.
I was in heaven for days. Then somehow, it all went wrong. Or more likely, it wasn't meant to be.
And since then things have changed. She stopped dying her hair blonde. I keep and eye on her, I know she's doing well, I like to be near her. Her presence has a calming effect on me.
She has this sisterly relationship with her mother, who had her when she was still very young. The mother, not having any sisters, developed a relationship with the daughter to fill the gap.
I don't know how that affects both or if it's good or bad. It's just one more piece of the <> I'm sewing. And one day, maybe it will all make sense, at once. On the last page, of the last chapter, before the grim reaper appears, in the shape of a sharp bend, near a cliff in the Pyrenees, saying, "Time is up, son", and over the guard rail I fly to a violent and instant death, a few seconds away. My life flashes before my eyes. Scenes of my childhood. Me playing with my brothers and sister. Walking with my mother on the beach at night, hand in hand. She stands so tall her head seems to touch the starry sky. And then darkness. But no. Aching life continues. Off I go, to break another pain barrier, then to compare notes, with my aching friends.
Knocked down on every round. Yet, up and away. Saved by the bell, again. The referee was up to nine. A brief respite then the flying blood, the cracking bones. "Will I survive, is God watching?"