I've been in the mood to write something lately but don't want to become invested in a lengthy project since I am busy with school, and will only continue to get busier as the year goes on. But I felt like writing and so I wrote a very brief, angsty entry based on a real situation that I now wish I had dealt with differently.
He was still a ways down the street but was coming towards her. He was walking with a girl and didn't seem to have seen her yet. They weren't holding hands, she noticed, but he was speaking excitedly with her and his laugh barreled up the sidewalk towards her.
She hadn't realized how much she had missed his explosive laugh until just then.
She tipped her sunglasses off their perch on her head and onto her eyes. Dark, black. She glanced briefly at the sun, thanked it for shining, thanked it for making her protective sunglasses necessary. She immediately felt more at ease. Her shoulders relaxed and her stride loosened. She hadn't realized she had been walking so stiffly until she wasn't anymore. She took a sip of her coffee and eased into a casual gait.
They were almost upon each other. He hadn't seen her. Although she appeared to be looking straight ahead, behind her shades her eyes were slanted towards him, observing his every move, sizing him up, analyzing the situation.
But what for? They were going to cross paths and he wasn't going to notice her at all. She would slink past undetected.
Then suddenly, unexpectedly, he tilted his head towards her, away from his companion, and his sentence stopped short. He was almost directly beside her now, their arms nearly touching as they walked in opposite directions down the street. She heard him start to speak. "Hey--" he said, but it was clipped, because no sooner had he spotted her had she jerked her head away from him, looking at the storefronts, forcing herself to be completely absorbed in the exorbitantly priced purses tucked away inside the shops. Her walk became jerky again and she felt her ears go hot.
His voice was deep, rumbling. She hadn't realized how much she had missed his voice until just then.
"I know her," her straining ears heard him say to the girl he was with.
No. That was a lie. He didn't know her. He knew what he wanted to believe of her but that didn't make it the truth.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and her heart nearly pounded itself out of her chest. The blood rushed to her face as months of anxiety flooded to the surface. She turned slowly to face him. He was smiling.
"Hey! How are you?" His tone was cheerful, carefree. The pain of the past half a year hadn't affected him, it seemed. Or hadn't happened to him.
"I'm... good," she replied guardedly.
"I haven't heard from you in a long time," he continued. "What's up with you these days?"
Her brow furrowed. Her lips turned downwards. Anxiety was replaced by anger and all the things she had wished she could say to him -- all the angry, hurtful things he deserved to hear -- rushed to her lips.
She swallowed her words. She shook her head and, peering at the two of them approaching her on the street, coming closer and closer, she decided she wasn't ready. She wasn't ready to be near him. She wasn't ready to endure a potential conversation with him, however pleasant. She wasn't ready to let him see her pretend to be okay with what had happened between them. Mostly she still hoped that if she didn't ever see him again, she could erase him from her memory.
She pressed her sunglasses to her face and clutched her coffee before hurrying off away from them. Perhaps he hadn't seen her at all. He never really had.
