Danielle

“Is this too much? I feel like this is too much.”

I felt strange to look like this. I was an elementary teacher for goodness sakes and I felt like a painted whore. It was the only term that I could think of when I looked in the mirror. Mariss had done my makeup and she was exclaiming how good I looked but I didn’t see it and I certainly didn’t feel it. She’d even put fake eye lashes on me, something I’d never worn before and it was all too much. The weight of the eyelashes was making it hard to see and it was becoming clear that this wasn’t going to work.

“No, it’s perfect Danielle. You have to chill out Danny. You never wear makeup, but it looks good.”

I looked back at the reflection in the mirror. The makeup made my hair look blonder if that was possible and there was a part of me that did like it. I didn’t look like myself and I guess that’s what I was going for. I didn’t want to look like the schoolmarm. Not if I ran into Mack. I wanted him to remember me as the sexy woman that I was. I didn’t want to get back with him, but if he was attracted to me after all of this time, I would take it as an ego boost and spend the next ten years with less on my shoulders. If his wife was uglier than me, well that wouldn’t be so bad either.

“Are you sure? I feel like, I don’t know.”

“It’s fine. I mean this isn’t a look that you’d wear to work, but for tonight it’s perfect. I don’t know why you don’t dress up more. You’re hot and you should flaunt it. Hell, I know that I would if I looked like you.”

I ignored her comments and took one last look in the mirror before I walked away. I didn’t want to think about it and it was going to have to do because it was time to go or we were going to be late. Since she was such a stickler for that and had been looking at the clock several times in the last few minutes, I figured it was time to go. It was as good as it was going to get apparently.

“Let’s get out of here then and see what this night is going to be like.”

She told me to stop being so pessimistic and I told her that I was going to try. All of this talk of Mack had him in the forefront of my mind and I knew that he was pretty much the only one that I really wanted to see. It would nice to catch up with everyone and to get to know the new people and how they turned out, but at the end of the day it was Mack that I wondered about. No one else really got into the equation, but he had always been different.

Mariss was driving and I was glad for that because my mind went to scenes from the past. Mack had been my first in so many ways. He was my first in bed, first in love, first to break my heart. Or I broke his heart. However it could be seen, my heart broke in the process as well, but we were two very different people. I wanted to go to college and he wanted to hang around and see what happened. It wasn’t a good enough plan for me. I knew that I wanted to be in education and a degree was needed to do so. I could have gone to school closer, but for some reason, I chose to get out of the area.

Maybe I wanted him to tell me to stay, offer to go with, but that wasn’t how it had happened. Instead I left and I had never seen him again or heard much of anything about him. My curiosity was up. It wouldn’t have taken Mariss too much to have convinced me to go. Secretly my curiosity was way up and I just wanted to know.

“What are you thinking about Danny? You’re so quiet.”

“I’m just thinking about high school and how I thought it was never going to end. It was really long and exhausting. All of the clicks and mean girls to deal with was a lot back then. I don’t know. I’m just feeling weird.”

“You’re not thinking about any guys in particular? You know, six foot three, strong build, dark blue eyes and blonde hair that looks about like the color of the sun?”

I laughed at her question and I knew that she was talking about Mack. It also reminded me that she’d had a crush on him all that time ago. We’d gotten into a fight and didn’t talk for a month over him and I knew that I was still just as opposed to the two of them going out. I cut her a look and she tried to look innocent.

“What, you have to admit he did have great hair.”

I knew that he did because I used to run my hand through it all the time. It was silky smooth and he had kept it so shiny that it almost glowed in some lights. It was a distinguished part of him and I did remember it well.

“Yeah he did have great hair and great abs. There is a lot that I miss about him; I’m not going to lie. But I don’t even think he will be there and if he was, I don’t even know what it is that I would say to him. What would you say to him?”

“If it was me Danny, you know that I wouldn’t say much of anything.”

I rolled my eyes, but it was about the answer that I would have expected from her. She was always into the physical side of a relationship and I swear that she was more like a stereotypical guy than most guys. I was different, but when it came to thoughts of my time with Mack, it was where my mind went as well.

“You can’t just go up to a guy after ten years and bang him.”

She laughed at my choice of words. “I don’t think I’ve heard that expression in years. God, see, we are already feeling like we did back in the day.”

I just sighed and tried not to think about it all that much. I was getting nervous and talking about it wasn’t helping. It usually did. We would make light out of a problem and it wouldn’t seem like such a problem.

“What if he is there and married to some hot model, rich and I threw it all away. The best sex of my life and it was all for a crappy forty thousand a year job teaching kids that don’t really want to learn?”

She got serious for a moment and I was happy that Mariss wasn’t going to make light of this. I was freaking out inside.

“It’s going to be fine Danny. If he is there, big if, he will see that he was a fool for letting you go off to college and not following you. That’s what he’ll learn and nothing more. I hope that he’s miserable and got fat.”

“Don’t wish that.”

She told me that I knew that’s what I wanted, but it wasn’t. When I thought of Mack, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. Not in the least bit.