'Twas not meant to be.

I shouldn't have done it. There was no point, nothing to be gained other than an assured rejection of the most painful sort.

I knew before I picked up the phone and crafted in my head just the right way to ask that one question that doing so would only thrust my self-pity to the next level of since-when-do-I-not-get-what-I-want? depression.

But of course I did it, anyway. I called him. He answered on the second ring. He was friendly, but only mildly so and in a very because-I-have-no-choice kind of way. We both recognized it. The conversation lasted no more than a few minutes, the vast majority of which belonged to the various permutations of my knew-the-answers-but-asked-them-anyway questions delivered with a holding-back-tears shake of the voice.

"Over? Like totally over?"

"I'm afraid so."

"But last week everything was fine, we were together and it was...it was spiritual. It was beyond spiritual. There was this connection, and it..."

"Yes, but last week was last week, and this week is this week."

"But I love..."

"I know, and it was a perfect fit, but..."

"How often does a perfect fit happen? Tell me, how often?"

"Rarely, but that's not the issue now. You need to move on and find..."

"But I don't want to find another. I want th..."

"There'll always be another season, another chance to find..."

"Look, you don't understand. They were it for me. And now you're telling me they're gone and you're never getting another shipment? Never??"

"I'm sorry, but we work on a season by season basis, and once the line is sold-out, we..."

"I understand. I mean, I don't, but I...so you're telling me someone else has my shoes? My shoes? I...I can't even..."

"I do apologize. At least you have the pict..."

"A picture? You think a picture is going to fill the...look, I have to go. This is too upsetting for me to discuss right now."

(click)

And thus ended my one-sided love affair with the perfect shoe I knew from the moment it caught me eye - and I caught an eyeful of its almost-half-my-rent pricetag - could never be mine. I know, I know, I should have seen it coming. I should've taken more seriously the "Within the day, for sure" answer to my "Do you think these will go quickly?" question I posed to the salesman, but as I always do, I left Hu's Shoes last Sunday blindly convinced they'd show up one unexpected afternoon in a white stretch limo with a long-stemmed rose bunch poking out of the sunroof while an Italian aria beckoned me to my half-open window and proved true my belief in fateful meetings with an "I'm here! I love you! Let's go to Library and show ourselves off!" happily-ever-after pronouncement.

But in the end, I'm not a former prostitute and the Maison Martin Margiela ankle-bangle stilettos aren't Richard Gere. And like doomed love affairs of the human variety, sometimes woman-shoe love just 'twasn't meant to be. Yes, 'twasn't.

Sorry, E, I know you told me to turn off the weepy music and stop wasting my youth and sass on self-pity, but this is different. This isn't him, this is them.

And my heart is inconsolably broken, begging for Damien Rice: