I head towards the front door, trying to make my escape rapidly. “I don’t want to. I have friends to meet…”
They both know that I’m lying. I don’t have anywhere that I need to be, but they let me go without too much of a fight. Mostly because they want to be alone, I’m sure of it. They are still in the honeymoon phase of rekindling what they lost all those years ago, and the last thing they need is me getting in the way. They just need each other.
I wander out the house, a little aimlessly, and after saying goodbye I start walking. I don’t really feel like going home right now, I don’t want to be by myself. The loneliness gets worse every single day. As I go, I see a movie poster for Tia’s latest project and my heart leaps high. I should be getting more and more used to this now, I see her a lot, but it gets to me every single time. Especially now. I can barely even stand to look at her. Yet I stop on the side walk and look for far too long, my heart shattering as I do.
Now that time has passed, it doesn’t even matter that she betrayed me anymore. I just want her. But this movie was filmed somewhere else, Iceland by the look of it, and I cannot trudge all the way to a different country to be rejected. Maybe she has even met someone else, someone who treats her far better than I ever did.
Urgh, with a head shake I keep on walking and I don’t stop until I get to my local bar, the bar where I met her. I guess this doesn’t help either. Continually drinking at the place where she met me, she snapped a picture of me, and she couldn’t pay her bar tab, just makes me think of her over and over again.
But like a glutton for punishment, I head inside and I buy myself a drink. The barmaid barely even grazes her eyes over me, ever since I got a moment of fame she hasn’t wanted to talk to me much which is just fine by me. I don’t have much to say either. To anyone, these days. I don’t know what’s happened to me. I have more than what I ever expected from life, but I’m deflated, like an empty shell of who I used to be.
“Hey there, handsome.” I turn to see Nadia smiling down at me. But it isn’t with seduction anymore. She never speaks to me like that these days. She’s given up on anything romantic, it’s pure friendship now. I’m grateful for that, we aren’t the closest in the world, but it’s nice. “How’s it going?”
“Yeah, it’s okay. How are things with you?”
She sits beside me and talks about her job and I actually listen. I listen to her a lot now and take interest in what she has to say, which is more than I ever managed when we were hooking up. Not that I’m proud of the person that I was back then, it was an uglier version of me. I’m trying to be better, even if there isn’t anyone to be better for. I just don’t want to be the playboy anymore. Tia has proven to me that I need something real.
“You know, I don’t know if I have commented how different you are these days,” she finally comments. “I like you more this way. Of course, I’m not attracted to you in the same way, but…”
I laugh and nod. “Yeah, of course you aren’t. That’s because I’m now the opposite of my past self.”
“You are lost, I’ll give you that, but you will find yourself.”
Her face turns a funny shade of white and she looks over my shoulder. I narrow my eyes, wondering what the hell she’s seeing. Maybe it’s someone from her past that she doesn’t want to see again, someone who might cause her trouble. I steel myself, ready to defend her if needs be.
“What’s going on, Nadia?” I demand. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is okay with me.” She slides off her chair. “It’s you who is about to struggle.”
“Struggle, why?” What the hell is she talking about?
“Because your past is about to catch up with you?”
“My past?” Doesn’t she know that my past has already caught up with me? “What do you…?”
I turn slowly on my chair to follow where Nadia is looking. It takes me a few moments to even realize what she’s looking at, and even when I do I don’t know if it’s real or not. It’s just so unexpected, strange.
But then everything comes together and my brain implodes. It’s her. It’s Tia. In the flesh. She’s here and she’s smiling at me as if she knew that I was going to be here. She’s come looking for me, here, yet again. And she’s found me. It’s her and me, the rest of the world melts away again just like it always does.