I noticed her walk into the bar from my seat in front of the tap. She came entered to jazz tune on the juke box with a wailing trumpet that sounded her arrival in her big heals a low slung shirt and a short skirt. Her blonde hair and figure hadn;t changed much since high school. I remembered the first time she tried to kiss me as I reluctantly pulled back. Retreating for fear of doing something wrong. She froze in place when my glance caught hers. Almost instantly she was at my side and in my ear with that sickening tone they all seem to take with me these days. "I heard what happened, I'm so sorry." We spent the afternoon catching up, it had been nearly six years since I went away. To me she still seemed so young, so naive, so vulnerable to my charms. I wanted her like I had wanted no one in the last three years. When the bar closed she took me with her out to the beach across the street. As she shed her heals and produced a bottle of wine I wondered how I never fell in love with her. We walked out the jetty and sat passing the bottle between us in silence until she broke the barrier.
"I used to see the way you looked at her. The way you lit up when she walked in the room. It was one of the things that made me want you. I was always so fucking jealous of her." She takes another long pull from the bottle of wine and passes it back. Unknowlingly her words have stirred something inside of me and the burning of the liquor in my stomach is replaced by that empty feeling again. I've got a hard enough time dealing with my own feelings and she went and complicated it all with words when I'd have been content just to have her company for the evening. But now, it isn't fair to drag her into my world when I barely have the strength to walk away from something that ended three years ago.
I stand to leave and shes on top of me, arms around my mid section. Unprepared my guard falls and the only way I can react is to throw my arms around her and pull her close. The smell of her perfume in my nose is overwhelming. For mere seconds I completely forget about the demons nesting in my chest and hold her as if she is the last woman on this earth. I know that she is mine and I know that with my works I can make her mine and I know that in my current state I could forget about her tomorrow and this would all mean nothing to me. I want so badly to use her for this night, like I have with so many other so many times before yet I can't bring myself to it. I pull back from her grasp apologize and walk all the way home where a bottle of jack is waiting for me.
I have a vague memory of sitting in front of the computer and banging way at the keys while I pull from my bottle when I wake up fully clothed in my chair. I hear a single peal of a church bell ringing in the distance, as I come to I realize it is my door bell.
When I open the door she is standing there, mascara smudged, sandy feet, short skirt and low slung shit from the night before. Before I can speak her arms are around me again and she speaks between sobs, "I'm sorry. I let you go once so many years ago. I want to see your eyes light up again and I want it to be for me this time. I know you're all kinds of fucked up but I really don't care about that. I want to help you." This time there is no pulling back for me. There is something lifted
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