I drove by the Alexander trailer park every day for two weeks after my grandma told me I could rent my uncle's old trailer. I had to take the long way, but I needed to see it. I needed to pretend I was making a decision to live there. I needed to pretend it wasn't my only option. I needed to stretch out my last moments at home with Avery. Maybe I thought if I stuck around for a little while, he would change his mind. I was so pathetic last summer. I'm a little less pathetic now. Or maybe I just hide it better.

Life in my tiny trailer with my cat, the one Avery brought home to me two short years ago, had been an adjustment.

I was living on my own for the first time, at twenty-five. Straight out of my parents’ house I moved a state away, in with my high school boyfriend. After he cheated on me, I moved in with a friend from work in the city. When I met Avery, I couldn’t stand waking up every morning without him. So I jumped at the chance to share a home with him.

Here in my trailer, I didn’t have Avery’s rules, Avery’s chores. I could watch Friends on repeat and bring home any boy I liked, but it got lonely.

Finding my tribe of friends, post Avery, was what I needed to survive. I lived for Wednesday nights at Paul's Wingstop.

It was another home I had made. With friends who gave me shit, who laughed off my own barbs.

I had never asked a boy I liked to come join me there. Blane was there, and I had gone home with him a few times, but that didn’t count. I didn’t like him that way. We had fun, that was it.

The first night Connor walked in, past nine, straight from work at the 24 hour bakery two blocks away, my stomach did a little flip.

He sat diagonal from me, smiled once, and then started chatting with someone else.

Though my heart was still stuck to Avery’s shoe, I had been single for about seven months and I knew how to play things.

Desperation was never my style. I was not a throw-myself-at-him kind of girl.

I kept my cool. I laughed and I carried on with my friends. Okay, maybe I was putting on a bit of a show, but I liked to catch Connor’s eye. They were large and brown, almost black. There was no doubt he had braces as a child. I liked his smile. It hid nothing.

His little texts, the way he smiled at the floor when I stared at him from across the table, he liked me. It was obvious, and I needed that.

We barely talked that night. He offered me a ride home and I accepted, not thinking it through. My trailer was a good twenty minutes from Paul's and I wasn't ready for him to see where I lived. I lied and told him to drop me off at my work, which wasn't far. I said my car was there. It was not. I ended up calling a cab after he pulled away.

When he dropped me off, we both said bye lowly. I liked his silence, his quiet. So many boys loved to put on a show, to strut and preen. Avery was a strutter. He was loud, in your face, cocky. I pretended to hate it when we met, calling him out on his arrogance, denying him of my affections. It’s always a game. I love playing.

Connor’s black to Avery’s white drew me in. He had a nice-guy vibe and it made me like him more but a seed was taking root in my belly. He was a nice guy and nice guys were not my thing.

I wanted them to be my thing, like most girls did, but they bored me. I wanted to chase, I wanted the ones that pushed me away. It was pretty sad, when I thought about it, so I tried not to. My life was a fictional tale, in my head, I wrote myself in a way that I could respect. But the truth was less pretty.

When Connor's car was no longer in sight, I dropped my purse on the curb and sat down. My phone beeped and I ran my fingers through my hair down to my neck. My buzz had me warm and dizzy. I pulled my phone from the side pocket of my purse and squinted at the screen.

I couldn’t keep the heat from rushing to my cheeks, between my legs. My fingers tingled.