Bernard Rogers was never a romantic. He never did anything spontaneously, he never did anything that went against logic; in fact, he never did much of anything at all. He was an existentialist who thought that life was nothing more than absurd.

Every day, Bernard would go to his high school and just observe the people around him...the religious fanatics, the petty complainers, the idealistic dreamers. Bernard saw them all as useless-that is, wasting their lives focusing on meaningless things. These types of people irritated him a great deal, but none more than the teenagers who claimed they were in love. "Love doesn't exist," he would mutter under his breath, as he stared blankly at the believers in the "Amor Vincit Omnia" doctrine. Didn't they understand? Bernard sure did. He knew that it was ridiculous to think that two people could ever share real love, which is in fact nothing more than media hype. If the two high school lovers don't break up by college, something will come between them, or some strange, unforeseen occurrence will tear them apart.

Love was about as meaningful to him as a hairball, and he regarded friendship with hardly more reverence. He had but one friend: Emily Tomlinson. She and he only got to know each other in the first place because they were next-door neighbors. He avoided talking to her until tenth grade, when her mother called his mother and asked if Bernard could tutor Emily in math. Mrs. Rogers proposed this to her son, and he quickly refused to help his neighbor. His mother persisted, however, and Bernard agreed to tutor Emily solely for the purpose of stopping his mother's nagging. He went to her house two times a week, and though he was resistant at the beginning, he got used to his biweekly visits after a while. Emily slowly but surely began to fall in love with Bernard, perhaps for nothing more than his innocence and lack of interest in her. Emily's grade went from a D to an A that year, and Bernard continued to tutor her, though Emily didn't really need it. On one visit in particular, Emily tried to tell Bernard her true feelings for him.

"Bernard," she said, "maybe we could take tonight off and not do any math."

"Alright," said Bernard. "I'll see you on Thursday."

"No! That's not what I mean, Bernard."

"Oh, heh...sorry, I must have misunderstood. You want to do something other than math?" he asked.

Emily looked at him seductively. "You could say that..."

Bernard was clueless. "Alright, no problem. What's it going to be? History, Biology, German? I hope you don't want help in Spanish because the only Spanish words I know are 'taco' and 'hola'."

Emily sighed. "No, Bernard, I don't want help in Spanish. I... I want help in my love life."

"Ah...Well I don't think I can help you there, Emily," he explained. "I don't believe in love, or relationships for that matter. And honestly, I think that if you think you like someone, you're lying to yourself. You just feel a bit lonely and think that you need someone to make you happy. It's all psychological."

Emily started crying. "What's your problem?" she asked furiously. "Don't you have any feelings at all?"

Bernard was just confused. He never meant to upset her, he was just trying to give her advice. "Feeble emotions," he thought. He left her house.

On Thursday, he called to see if Emily wanted any help with her math. She told him she didn't need tutoring anymore, but she still wanted to spend time with him. He was confused by this and didn't really see how it mattered to her if she saw him or not. "It must just be a girl thing," he thought to himself.

Despite his confusion, from that day until the end of their senior year, Bernard and Emily spent at least three nights a week together. They saw movies, went out to dinner, watched TV at home, or just hung out and talked about life. They grew to be close friends, but nothing more. Emily couldn't take it. She loved Bernard, and through him learned a great deal. However, the lesson he taught her that affected her most was that of the pain caused by unrequited love. She knew that she would never truly be happy if Bernard was only her friend, and when she and Bernard went off to college, she decided to have one last talk with him about the matter.

"Bernard," she said, "I need to tell you something." She couldn't look him in the eyes. She was too nervous, too embarrassed.

"What is it?" he asked.

She hesitated a minute and looked up at him. "I love you. I have loved you since the tenth grade, and I can't take this anymore. I can't just be your friend, Bernard. I want so much more. I want to go out on dates, I want to show you affection, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I want-"

"Stop it, Emily!" yelled Bernard sternly. It was as if her words totally appalled him. "You may think you love me, but you know how I feel on the matter. I don't believe in love. And since I don't think love exists, I can't love you. I don't love you."

Emily ran out of the room crying.

They didn't talk for the next six years.

She and Bernard went off to college; she to the University of Virginia, and he to James Madison University. She was quite upset about it all, but new she had to move on. He, on the other hand, thought that it really didn't matter (just like everything else), though he always felt like a little part of him was missing since that day.

At the end of that six years, however, Bernard found himself hearing a familiar voice on the other end of the telephone.

"Hi...Bernard?"

"Emily... is this Emily?" Bernard asked.

"Of course it's Emily," she replied. "How have you been, Bernard?"

"Hey! It's been years since I last talked to you... I've been doing alright I guess; nothing to complain about. How are you doing? Why are you calling after so long, anyway?"

"I'm calling to tell you I'm getting married, Bernard."

A strange feeling came over him. He didn't know quite what it was... "Married?" he asked.

"Yes... I met a great guy, his name is Derek. We're getting married tomorrow at 2:00 at St. Steven's Church in Richmond, and since it's only twenty minutes away from where you live now, I just wanted... well, I really would like you to be there."

He was sad. He didn't know why, but he was sad. He said nothing to her.

"Bernard, are you there?"

He snapped out of it. "Yes, Emily... well, I would like to see you and all. But I...I just don't see the point in marriage, and-"

"You don't see the point??" she questioned. "Bernard... I love him."

He grew angry. "As much as you said you love me, Emily? Really, this just proves that I've been right all along. If love is so great and love is so powerful, how can your love for me die after just six years and now you're marrying some shmuck!"

"I never stopped loving you, Bernard!" she exclaimed. "I still love you today, and I always will love you. The problem isn't that I don't love you... the problem is that you don't love me, Bernard! That's always been the problem. You don't know how to love!"

"I don't believe in love!" snapped Bernard. He hung up. Never before had he ever felt what he was feeling then. It was a mix of emotions-anger, sadness, confusion. He didn't know what was happening to him. He went to bed that night feeling like the whole world had turned upside-down, and he didn't know why.

He awoke the next day in the late afternoon. When he went outside to pick up the newspaper, something happened that never happened before. He looked up at the sky for no reason at all. He just felt like it. "It's beautiful..." he thought. A plane flew overhead and he watched it pass. He continued to look at the sky.

And as Bernard sat there staring up at the clouds, he began to realize that everything he had once believed in was completely wrong. He used to chastise people for thinking that their lives had meaning, when in reality, the only life without meaning was his... and this was only because he never gave it any. He did love Emily, he really did. At that moment, his life began to have meaning, because she brought meaning to it. Love brought meaning to it. He had in fact been conquered by love. Life wasn't absurd, it was beautiful, just like the girl he wanted to spend the rest of it with. And at the precise moment that he realized this, he knew what he had to do. He had to stop the wedding.

He quickly got into his car and sped down Wright Avenue toward the chapel. Perhaps it was because he had realized so much already and couldn't realize any more, or maybe it was just that he was in a hurry, but Bernard failed to realize that a red light meant stop. As he sped through the intersection, his car was hit on the rear right side by a tow truck. The truck's tires squealed to a stop, and the driver got out and started walking toward Bernard's car.

"Are you alright?" the driver asked the disoriented Bernard.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Bernard said. "I'll pay for all the damages, but I need to get to the church! I have to stop the wedding!!!"

"Calm down, sir... not until the police get here, and not in that car of yours. The back of it is completely crushed, and your tires are totally misaligned. I'll tell you what though, I'll call the police, and while we wait for them I'll hook your car up to my truck and give you a ride to whatever church you're talking about."

Bernard didn't want to wait for the police, and he failed to see the irony of the situation at all. He no longer believed in irony.

"I can't wait! If I wait, they're going to get married, and that can't happen, because I love her!" cried Bernard.

Even if he hadn't already started running toward the church, Bernard wouldn't have had to wait much longer. A passerby must have dialed emergency when the crash happened, and an ambulance was already speeding toward the scene, followed by two police cars.

Just like Bernard had been focusing on Emily, the ambulance driver was focusing on getting to the accident. The driver was in such a hurry that he failed to see the lovesick man running towards a chapel on the opposite side of the street. The driver tried to stop, but he hit Bernard head on, breaking both Bernard's legs and bruising his ribs.

As Bernard lay in shock on the asphalt, the paramedics brought out a stretcher and started to treat the injured man.

"Sir, we're going to do everything in our power to help you, just relax... You're in good hands."

"Don't worry about me," said Bernard. "I'm in love, and love never dies. I won't die. I can get through this. Love will conquer this. If I weren't in love, I would have died right away, but I'm not dead. I'm awake; I am here, here to love. Just help me get to Emily's wedding!"

But Bernard was in no shape to stop a wedding, and the only reason he was still awake and talking was because he was in shock and didn't realize the extent of his injuries. One of the paramedics injected him with a sedative.

"What's that black thing in the sky?" Bernard asked.

"Nothing, sir," said the paramedic, without even looking up. She knew that Bernard was just losing consciousness as a result of the medication. She was expecting to see Bernard's eyes close as the sedative set in, but his eyes were wide open. A great fear shot into them, and the paramedic looked up just in time to see an object plummeting toward her. She dived out of the way as the cold black hearse landed on Bernard. He was killed instantly.

The music on the radios of the other cars in the area was interrupted with a message. "Your regularly scheduled playlist will continue in a moment but we have been asked to deliver some important news. A cargo plane heading over the greater Richmond area has dropped some of its shipment. A malfunction in the operation of the hatch has resulted in the loss of some of the plane's cargo. We have been asked to alert you of this and urge you to watch out for any falling debris."

"Oh turn this off," said Emily. "Let's listen to something upbeat!" The limo drove by the scene of the accident, "Just Married" sign and all.