Love Story of the Century

### Monica Geller, Rebecca Phaser, Matt Evans, Chandler Bing, Jamie Phaser

Have you ever met 2 people that just go so perfect together, you wonder how it is even real? I have. But even after watching them together for 10 years, I can’t believe it’s true.

Them meeting was a bit of a coincidence. Rebecca had been my roommate for about 2 years, and in all the time that I knew her, which was closer to 15 years, she had never once had a boyfriend, or even been on a real date. With the exception of the guy she brought to the Christmas party, who we all believe was either paid or bribed to be there, and who we never saw again afterward, she had never even brought a guy over. Rebecca was sarcastic, and had a dark sense of humour, but she also knows how to flirt. I’ve seen her do it at bars to get us free drinks. Whenever we asked about her lack of relationships, she just said she didn’t have any interest. Though we accepted that, and didn’t push, but that didn’t stop us from trying to set her up with good-looking guys at the café.

It was the middle of summer, and Chandler and I had persuaded Rebecca to third wheel our date. Rebecca was the only one in our friend group that knew we were dating. How she figured it out, we never learned, and it took the others a couple more months to figure it out. She agreed to come with us to the carnival, so the others wouldn’t get suspicious.

She must have gotten tired of us making puppy eyes at each other, and who could blame her, third wheeling is not fun, and she said she would meet us in a couple hours, and wandered off.

Nobody really knows what happened except the 2 of them, but the version she told us later was that Matt approached her near the shooting game booth, and said something about being able to win her the stuffed dog she had been eyeing.

When we found them later, they had ice cream cones and Rebecca was laughing at something he had said.

Rebecca truly smiling is a bit of a rarity, but carefree laughing is near unheard of. It's not that she is super serious or anything, but it’s almost as if she forgets to display her emotions on the outside.

Before we could approach them and meet the guy that could make Rebecca genuinely laugh, she caught sight of us. She said something to him, nodding in our direction, and he smiled and handed her the stuffed dog that was sitting on the table.

When we tried to question her about it on the way home, all she said was that he was a nice enough guy to spend the afternoon with.

And we didn’t hear anymore about him for a number of days. Honestly, I had a lot going on at work right then, and had completely forgotten to mention this to the others.

It was only when Rebecca came home one evening dressed nicely with dangling earrings and everything and smiling, that I even remembered the carnival guy.

As usual, our apartment was pretty full. Chandler, and his roommate Joey, who lived across the hall from us, were sprawled out across the couch. My brother, Ross, and Rebecca’s brother, Jamie, who were also roommates, as well as our friends Rachel and Phoebe were scattered around the apartment as well.

Everyone waited in shocked silence for an explanation as Rebecca took off her coat, but none was forthcoming. Finally, Joey asked, “You were on a date, weren't you?”

“Yup” was the monosyllable answer.

We couldn’t decide if we should make a big deal about this, or if that would scare her off dating forever.

“A date?” Jamie’s big brother instincts kicked in. Rebecca raised an eyebrow at him.

“It is this thing where two people go for dinner -”

“I know what it is,” Jamie cut her off, “I just didn’t know that you did.” Rebecca rolled her eyes.

“Who’d you go with?” he continued.

Before Rebecca even had a chance to answer, Chandler cut in, “it was that guy from the carnival, wasn’t it?”

Everyone started talking at once, and since Rebecca seemed to show no indication of answering, I briefly explained.

“So it was him?” Rachel asked. Rebecca gave a curt nod, but before any more questions could be asked, her phone rang. It always seemed to ring at the most convenient times for her.

Over the next few weeks, she went on a number of dates with him. We finally got out of her that his name was Matt and that he was a soldier, home on leave between tours. That was all, and she still refused to let us meet him. We weren’t sure if she was actually going on these dates, or if she had just gone on one, and was just pretending for our benefit, but she seemed happier in general. And the stuffed dog stood on her nightstand.

Then Matt had to return to active duty.

I was expecting Rebecca to be sad or angry, or something, but she barely seemed affected. Or at least she gave no indication of it, but as I mentioned before, she’s pretty good at hiding emotions.

Letters would arrive for her from Afghanistan every couple of weeks. Then a month passed and none came. This was it, I had thought, they had somehow kept a long-distance relationship going for 4 months before it fell apart.

In a way, I was right, but not how I expected.

Matt had come home, and Rebecca hadn’t bothered to tell us. Instead, they picked up where they had left off.

Before Matt had left, Rebecca told us they had agreed not to wait for each other. Life is short, but if they both were alive and felt the same way when he got back, it could possibly become something serious.

After Matt had been back a couple months, and Rebecca finally told us, she agreed to introduce us.

As a group, it was kind of a big deal when meeting the girlfriend or boyfriend. We were each other's family here in New York, and this was our chance to make sure this person really was good enough for our friend. This time would be an even bigger deal because it was the first time we would be meeting a boyfriend of Rebecca.

The only thing she told us beforehand was not to ask him anything about the army or the war. We figured either he was sensitive to the topic or he would go on and on about it, as is the case with most soldiers. We later learned that while Matt didn’t ask her to put those restrictions on us, he was grateful, as that was usually the first thing people were to talk about.

I was responsible for cooking, which was good, as Rebecca couldn’t cook at all. If it had been my boyfriend coming over for the first time, I would have made sure he apartment was spotless and my friends were on their best behavior, but Rebecca wasn’t bothered. She said she wanted him to meet us how we really were because if he couldn’t accept it, he wasn’t worth pursuing a relationship with.

We didn’t have anything to worry about, though. He was super nice, and managed to find something to connect with with everyone. He enjoyed cooking, and despite my protests, insisted on helping me finish dinner. He got into a deep conversation about Shakespeare with Jamie, with Rebecca commenting from the side. Apparently all three of them had random passages from plays memorized.

And he made Rebecca laugh.

He quickly became integrated into our friend group. The more we saw of Matt and Rebecca together, the more we realized why they worked so well together. His sense of humour was just as black as hers. They both have a deeply ingrained sense of loyalty, while at the same time having a disregard for rules. They both put others well-being before their own, which can cause interesting situations, when they are determined to make sure each other is safe/happy first, resulting in a stalemate