Blayne

Love comes quickly, whatever you do.

 

 

The rain was pouring down, heavy, and I couldn’t find shelter. I kept glancing at the people passing by and they were all carrying huge umbrellas, but they wouldn’t lend me any shade. And then I saw Nick, and I knew it was him but he had this menacing expression on his face, as if he was going to turn into a bizarre creature, and he scared me so I ran. But between the rain and the people, and their huge umbrellas, it was impossible to get away from him until someone gripped my arm and pulled me away. Afraid that it might be Nick, I tried to steal a look at the man’s face, even though I didn’t want to…

…and I was left looking into a pair of soft, blue eyes.

“You don’t have to run anymore,” he said. “I’m here now.”

And then he smiled.

And it was beautiful.

It took away some of my fear.

“Let me help you,” he said.

Afraid that Nick would catch up to us, I realized that I couldn’t do anything but fear his approach, but then the blue-eyed man just held me and kissed me…

I woke up and realized it was a dream. I had the same feeling I used to get when I had been fantasizing about movie stars, and one of them ended up in some odd fantasy that my brain conjured up while my other senses were asleep. Only this time, it’s him. The dream had so overtaken me I forgot his name…

…Chase, I remember then.

The sight of his offering a hand to shake, of stifling that cigarette, it all came back, and so did bits and pieces of the night we spent together. One part of me was so embarrassed I didn’t even know what to say. The other one wanted to resume that dream and go back to sleep, because that kiss was hot.

And then, I heard the phone on my nightstand, vibrating away and I picked it up. When I saw the the same texts, I felt a certain amount of disappointment. Nick, who could barely wake up before four in the evening on weekends was now awake, at ten in the morning, and calling me as if the world was about to end. And suddenly, I had the urge to read his messages. In retrospect, it might have been a bad move.

I don’t know if it was the effect of the dream, or the messages themselves or some strange wave of nostalgia that brought tears to my eyes.

<Nick> I LOVE YOU.

<Nick> I KNOW I’VE BEEN AN ASSHOLE.

<Nick> I DON’T KNOW HOW TO LIVE ANYMORE BLAYNE.

<Nick> I NEED TO SEE YOU. ONE MORE TIME. PLEASE.

Plenty of other statements like that, most of them asking me to come up and meet him someplace. It didn’t have to be private, he just wanted to see me, one last time. A request that sounded genuine enough. Only, I had a vague idea how it was going to end. I had been dreading this. I felt like if I even so much as see his face again, I might give up on hating him, and I might get carried away in the torrent that is my ex-life with him. It was the last thing I wanted to do but that fear was still there in the back of my mind, and I couldn’t help but feel a lot less resentful at him for what he did. I knew I was supposed to hate him for what he did for the rest of my life, and I should have accepted that he wasn’t going to change, not ever, but that stupid, odd voice inside my head kept screaming otherwise.

Suddenly, I was remembering the good times we had, how romantic it was when it began. I remembered all the amazing things he had done for me. Two days ago, when I started drinking a little more than usual, I got to wondering if it would be okay to just continue my life with him, and just get used to his faults to get my hands on the good stuff. And there is good stuff, a lot of it, I assure you. Enough to make me think that way, obviously.

But it was times like these, when you must figure out whose side you’re on: his or yours.

I almost ended up texting him a response from all the confusion, but I held myself back with a lot of effort. When Chloe woke up I told her. “Nick says he wants to see me one last time.”

She just stared back at me for a second, as if she was trying to say ‘right, and you’re telling me this why’?

“I can’t avoid him for the rest of my life,” I said, somewhat unsure.

“You don’t have to,” Chloe said, wisely enough. “Just until you know you’re over him. Just until the healing has begun and you’ve moved on. When you don’t have any of those left-over feelings.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“It will Blayne,” she said. “It has to. There is no other way to do this. He’s not right for you and you know it. You’ve been doing so well without him so far. There’s no need to complicate matters by agreeing to see him.” My eyes were still glued to the message until Chloe confiscated the phone. “Don’t let some random feelings of mere empathy for an ex, ruin your life. It’s not love. Love is a bond built on mutual understanding, loyalty, and affection. Not on the fizzling embers of fucked up relationships.”

“I just keep having this urge to see him again, even though I also want to gouge his eyes out.”

“I’m not saying it’s easy getting over all those years of your life with him, and I’m not saying it’s going to happen in one day. It’s stupid to expect that it will. I’m just saying, until you’re in a better frame of mind to figure things out, it’s best to just stay away.”

Chloe made a lot of sense for someone who had never been in a long-term relationship. Maybe that was why. She wasn’t ready to sacrifice her life for someone who wasn’t worth the effort. Perhaps she was right to wait. She said statistically, most people do things not because they want to, but because something’s been programmed into their heads. I don’t always agree with her but it’s worth thinking about.

“Men like Nick don’t want marriage,” she said. “They just want the illusion of marriage. What they really want is to be fucking a new woman every night, without their wives asking where they were. They love having a woman they can come home to, but they don’t want the responsibility or the effort that comes with it. They might think they have evolved and that they don’t treat women the wrong way, but they are still just figuring things out. Personally, I think they need at least another century to realize how they can correct this stupidity.”

“Just because Nick’s a bad apple doesn’t mean I don’t believe in the institution of marriage, or love.”

“You can believe what you want, Blayne. I’m just saying, that’s not Nick. Maybe someone else, someone who believes in love and marriage the same way you do. Why else would you have walked out on him eight months before you were supposed to get married?”

I knew there was a part of Nick that wanted to get married to me, and another part of him that just wanted to be the single guy forever. He cared about me in some twisted way, but I knew I was not the only woman he ever wanted to be with. He liked to think that he did though and that was what complicated things for us. But the truth is, I had never once felt that passion from his side, the kind of passion his words claimed he had for me.

He has never looked at me that way…

…the way Chase looked at me.

Okay there, I said it.

I knew I had only met him a few times, and I knew it was silly, but standing there, in the rain, inside the diner, and afterwards, there was something in the way he was looking at me. It was different than what I was used to with Nick. And that was why every time I felt Chase’s eyes on me, I think I started to feel like maybe I deserved more than what Nick was giving me.

That there was more to life and love and romance, than Nick was capable of.

The sound of the doorbell had become routine by now.

Every day, without fail, a pretty, ribbon adorned box would arrive and inside would be the day’s wisdom.

Today’s fortune: “The spell of old love can be forgotten only with new flames.”