There's the pride.
Feeling that you've somehow won.
Because the power they once possessed over you had subsided.
And you feel stronger because of it.
There's the pang of longing.
Even though you feel empowered having shed the arduous infatuation some part of you still pines for nostalgia and holding onto those dear love feelings you once so cherished.
There's the wonder.
As you observe their features and demeanors, the way sentences sound as they spill from their mouth.
You find yourself marveling at why it once seemed flawless.
When now you hear the condescension and hubris, the indifference and the feigned niceties.
There's the sadness.
That all those magical atoms no longer dance among you.
And when you lock eyes the emotion stirred is more lifeless than you imagined could exist between once passionate lovers.
But I simply observed.
And accepted.
And even delighted in feeling his sloppy disheveled state wasn't adorable.
He just looked tired.
His mood irritable.
When he looked at me I didn't feel like a goddess anymore.
I didn't feel anything.
I checked my bill and noticed he hadn't paid for either of my drinks.
My ego winced.
As I signed the receipt I then turned over the second copy.
It was lovely to see your face. You were the best part of my day, I scribbled on the back.
Just like he used to say.
Nostalgia prompting me to place some significance on my exit, unnecessarily so.
I reached in my coin purse and pulled out a ten dollar bill.
Insecurity prompting me to tip generously, as though a thousand pennies might make him think well of me.
Suddenly the elderly woman to my right said, louder than necessary, Is that your girlfriend over there? The one with the brown hair? She is cute.
I didn't look up from my receipt.
I ceased movement and channeled all my energy into listening, the way a deer might fearing a hunter.
My lack of movement was met with silence.
I imagined a smile or nod was the reply to the loud woman's questions.
But no words were spoken.
No agreement or prideful ownership of the title.
The word Girlfriend hung in the air.
Shrill.
And resonant.
Slowly I slipped the receipt with the scrolled message into my purse and returned the ten dollar bill to the coin purse.
I reached for a few one dollar bills already bundled and placed it on the wordless receipt.
As I stood I met his gaze.
It was good seeing you, I smiled.
His stare for the first time all eve looked intense.
The truth had been revealed and I'd understood in those brief seconds why he'd never met me all those months ago.
He'd found someone who wasn't complicated.
Who didn't need his time because she was already always with him.
She didn't judge his brokenness because she hadn't known him before.
And a part of me was genuinely happy for him.
But my ego.
My battered little ego looked at the girl in the black lace dress and whispered, Why her and not me?
And then the poor ego sighed and slumped over with all the dejected sadness in the world.
It wasn't my fault I met him when tragedy struck.
It wasn't my fault she got to meet him after the dust had settled.
It felt like he won.
And I lost.
My string of disappointing lovers leaving me in the same state of singledom he'd left me in.
And that oath of needing to heal on his own, of being too fucked up to be with anyone.
Love isn't dead but my chivalry is writhing in its death bed.
What false words!!
She had his hands on her waist and I had his hollow texts.
It's not fair, my heart moaned.
It's just not fair.
If only he would have shared this truth.
What healing could have been so long ago!
But he wasn't a transparent truth teller as he'd so admired in me.
And he never shared with me the way I gave so freely to him.
Leaving I met my friend in the street.
She wrapped her arms around me and told me what I hadn't seen.
I walked up to him and I asked him, 'So Teresa....what's the deal....I know you don't know me or anything...' And he said, "Yeah, I don't. And it's none of your fucking business. If Teresa wants to know how I feel then she can talk to me."
I blinked.
Stunned.
He was so MEAN, she said.
Earnest concern poured from her eyes.
I didn't know what his anger meant.
It made no sense.
I hadn't heard from him in months.
He obviously didn't care.
So if I mattered so little why wouldn't he respond with his typical calm indifference?
Why so much anger toward a girl he looked at without even seeing anymore?
But for the first time this whole time I didn't need to solve his puzzle anymore.
And as we drank and laughed elsewhere my phone beeped with a text from him.
A him I hadn't seen in a very long time.
Who suddenly wanted to see me.
Because Timing in all her cruelty also pours sunshine into our hearts.
And as I walked into a bar I've never been, I saw him across the room.
Heading towards me a smile danced across his lips.
And as he reached me his eyes smiled themselves.
And I suddenly felt beautiful for the first time that night reflected in his eyes.
And it all no longer mattered.
The black lace dress or the unsolicited rage.
The heartache was buried in the past.
And this other past was now standing before me.
In this moment.
Something altogether new.
And somehow, unchanged as it once was.
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