Jigsaw

         “What about you Tim?” Said Anna, “Have you got someone on your radar?”
         Tim looked up from his book, he had been sitting in a chair opposite from the three girls on the sofa. It was a quiet evening in a bar and the three girls, Anna, Susan and Emma had been chatting about guys.
         Emma had been in a relationship for 6 months and seemed pretty happy, she talked about her boyfriend's work and his car and how they were thinking about moving in together.
         Susan had been single for a few months now. She had been in and out of relationships for years but just couldn't find a guy who was any more than his smooth talk.
         Anna was an odd case. She really liked Greg, a friend of Tim's, however he was always in a state of only semi-interest. They would chat, text and email a lot but the only times they went out together were with other people. He was currently over the other side of the bar playing on the fruit machines. Anna seemed content with this arrangement, hanging on to see if it turned into anything but not really caring if it took a week or ten years. She didn't say as much, but Tim could tell this from knowing them for so long, and also from personal experience.
         Tim blushed a little as the question was asked. He was quite shy and rarely went out, and when he did he would read his book and listen to the conversation around him.
         “Well, um,” he hesitated, “There was someone, but she's not interested”
         “Oh?” said Anna, sitting up, “Who? Do we know her?”
         “Yeah.”
         “At work?” asked Emma.
         “Yeah.”
         “Well you can't not tell us now!” Susan smiled.
         Tim was smiling and blushing at the attention. “It's Laura.”
         “Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww” came the chorus from the girls. Laura worked in the same office as all of them and would sometimes join them in the bar.
         “I've had a crush on her for a while,” said Tim, looking at his shoes, “and the other week I brought up the courage to ask her...”
         “Aww”
         “... in an email.”
         “Aww... Oh.”
         “Yeah, says it all” Tim sighed.
         “So, she said no?” asked Emma.
         “She was very nice about it,“ said Tim, “said she was flattered etc. but she had a similar crush on someone she knew. How true that is I don't know but...” he shrugged.
         “Well, I've got to say,” said Anna, “That you two would make a really cute couple”
         The other two girls murmoured in agreement before Tim dropped his head into his hands. “Oh God don't say that...” He said, a tremble in his voice, just loud enough for them to hear and quieten down.
         “It's just,” he said, “I've felt so lonely for so long, and I just keep telling myself that if I get a girlfriend everything else in my life will just fall into place. But I'm just not a social person so I've wasted so much time at school and work just pining after these girls who I have no chance with and doing nothing about it. Stuck in a dead end job with no more ambition and I dread to think about how many relationships I've missed out on because I'm constantly looking up at the sky with my head in the clouds. I just need... I need...”
         He looked up, he could bearly see with the tears in his eyes but the girls were there, hanging on his every word. He suddenly felt very self-concious.
         “Excuse me...” he mumbled and stumbled out of the bar into the evening air.
         They watched him leave, all a bit stunned at the outpouring of emotion from a guy who always kept quiet. Anna looked at Susan, she was gripping the back of the sofa like she wanted to get up and follow but there was hesitation.
         “Go,” said Anna, simply. “Ask him what he needs.”
         Susan looked at Anna, then at Emma, and then at Tim's vacated seat. His drink half drank, book open on the arm of the chair. She had caught a glimpse of the core of this man and suddenly needed to find out more. She got up and followed him into the moonlight.

         Tim was leaning on the railing next to the river, a definite necessity on a waterfront full of bars. His shoulders were trembling, not from the night air as it was still warm, but from fighting the tears. He heard Susan walk up behind him and he wiped his face with his hands.
         “I'm sorry,” he said, “I can usually hold it together, it's just I'm a low point right now.”
         “Don't be sorry Tim,” she said, standing next to him. “I think we girls spend so much time wishing that men could express emotions like we do, we start to think they don't have them at all.”
         “I feel so pathetic,” he said, leaning back on the rail.
         “You were going to say something just now,” said Susan, “what do you need?”
         Tim sighed. “I just need someone to hold in my arms, to be totally relaxed with, to listen to and speak to and never having to worry about what they think of me. I want to be loved Susan... but I wonder if I deserve it.”
         Susan wrapped her arms around him and held him close, her cheek next to his. He tensed for a moment, then she felt him relax as his arms closed around her back, he was still trembling but she heard a sigh which sounded like it had been waiting a long time to come out. They stayed like that for a while, until Susan turned her head to face his.
         “You deserve it.” she whispered and then she kissed him.
         It was a surprise, they were so close it was only a small movement for their lips to be touching but Tim had never felt anything like it.
         Susan could feel him trembling and instinctively raised her hand to his cheek to calm him. Their lips were bearly touching so she pushed against him ever so slightly, their heads tilted and they relaxed into a long, deep kiss.

         Anna and Emma, had been watching the scene through the glass front of the bar. They couldn't hear anything they were saying but only just managed to keep their cool as the two embraced.
         “What are you two looking at?” asked Greg, who had given up on the fruit machines and came back to the table.
         “Shh!” they both chastised him.
         “Pardon me for breathing,” he sighed and moved over to the empty spot on their sofa. He sipped his drink and spotted the empty seat and Tim's book.
         “Where's Tim?” He asked.
         “Shhhh!” They hissed again. With this Greg turned in his seat and looked to see what was so interesting. He saw what looked like Susan and Tim, locked in an embrace, and was just in time to see them fold into a kiss.
         A sound split the air which only twenty-something females can make, usually when they witness or are told about a couple's first kiss, and is accompanied by a slight flailing of limbs.
         “About bloody time!” said Greg, raising his glass. “It took them long enough!”
         “What do you mean?” asked Anna turning to him.
         “Oh come on,” he replied, “He's a nice quiet guy been longing for a girlfriend for years, and she's been after a nice quiet guy for years and only seems to find bastards. Good idea of mine to drag him along tonight.”
         “Are you tring to take credit for this?” Asked Emma.
         “Of course!” he said, putting his feet up. “He was ready to head home and watch Battlestar Galactica all weekend, but I said to him 'don't waste time pineing after Laura...'”
         “You knew about..?” began Anna,
         “Don't interrupt!” he said, not breaking his sentance, “I said 'come out with us and see what you've been missing out on'.”
         “Next I sat him down here with you three, his head swirling with thoughts of being lonely and that he might have missed out and I buggered off to play the fruit machines. As soon as I was out of the way I knew you'd be chatting about guys and relationships and with Tim's head in a book I knew you would only ask him when you realised you'd run out of girly things to say.”
         Both Anna and Emma were gaping at what Greg was saying. Greg carried on regardless.
         “So let me guess, he told you about his crush on Laura, you said something encouraging at which point he broke down and ran out. I knew with three of you here at least one of you would run out to comfort him and chances were it would be one of the single ones.”
         “You planned this?” Said Anna, quietly, “Together?”
         “What?” asked Greg, “Oh I see what you mean, you think I told him what to do. No, no, that was all natural, I just set up his state of mind, he had no idea. Gave him a beer to relax him and bring his true feelings to the surface, got him thinking about his life so far, and hoped it would trigger a reaction with you three. I had no idea what exactly would happen, I just wanted him to come out of his shell and be seen by someone who can make him happy.”
         Anna looked back at the two outside, they were smiling and talking and occasionally kissing. She looked back at Greg, a cold look in her eye.
         “I don't know whether to kiss you or slap you.“ She said. “You've made them so happy, but you did it in such a cold, calculating and manipulative way.”
         “I just helped you see the real him,” he replied, “we need to see the real person to see what we're missing.”
         Anna stood and finished her drink.
         “Too right,”
         She walked away, wiping her eyes. Emma began to follow her.
         “Let her go,” said Greg, just staring ahead. “It's for the best.”
         “Did you do all that just to get rid of her?” Asked Emma.
         “Two birds with one stone.”
         “You're incredible!” exclaimed Emma.
         “I guess from the tone of your voice that's not in a positive way.” Said Greg, sipping his drink.
         “Of course it's bloody not!” she said. “you manipulated your friend into bareing his soul and made the girl who loves you think you're a bastard!”
         “That's who I am!” said Greg, standing up. “and she deserves better. Like I said, you need to see the real person to know what you're missing. It's better that she knows now, it will save her feelings a lot more than if I went out with her, got a few shags and then she finds out I'm a bastard. She'll leave here and by next week she'll have found someone good for her. I half expected her to go after Tim tonight, that would have worked too.” He wondered back towards the fruit machines.

         Emma stared after him. She didn't know what to make of him. A selfless bastard, a heartless matchmaker, a cynical optimist. He hadn't done anything for himself but she still hated him for it.
         She looked out of the window, Anna was chatting to Susan and Tim. Their lives were changed forever tonight thanks to Greg, maybe he was right and just being yourself will make everything slot together in the right way, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. Try to force two pieces together and you'll never get the picture complete. One day Greg will find his place in the puzzle, once he's helped everyone else and is left with a single gap.