I was talking to a friend, spending barely any mental effort pretending she wasn’t there, when she snuck up behind me and poked me in the back. “Hey you.”
The poke caught me off guard but I could smell her. I can recognise her scent anywhere, usually from a distance: she smells good. I told her so.
“Thanks.” Pause. We hadn’t talked in a couple of weeks. Not odd for ex-lovers, but odd for us. We were friends, good friends, who talked daily, even when we’d broken up in the past. “How you doing?”
“Good,” I said, half-lying. I was better. I think of her less, and when I do, I’m less angry. But I am always angry. That may be why we haven’t talked. To be spiteful, I said “I’m doing good. How about you?” I smiled.
“I’m doing good,” but the hollow space between her syllables echoed across an empty heart. I recognised the sound.
We made polite excuses, and I went back to my conversation. She went to get a drink.
Later, she sidled up to me at the bar to say goodbye. I could smell her. She was intoxicating, always. “Well I’m leaving.”
“It was nice seeing you.” Our words were punctuated wiith that hollow space. And forced restraint.
“It was nice seeing you, too.” She leaned in closer to whisper, thought carefully about her words. “Would you like to come lay beside me?”
If you didn’t know her you wouldn’t understand the submission in her words. Usually, she’d say ‘you can do this, if you want…’ Always the position of granting power, but here, “would you” showed deference.
“I’d like that.” Pause to think about the progress we’d made not being together. Think about how angry I still was. Think about how good she smelled, how nice her skin felt. “Maybe I will.”
“We can’t do anything.”
“No problem.” I laughed. I was serious.
“No. Really.” She miscalculated the effect her charms would still have. “I’m seeing someone.”
“Then I shouldn’t come over.”
“I can leave the dooor open. You can just slide in behind me.”
I recalculated the effects of her charms. “No. If you’re seeing someone, I shouldn’t.”
“Don’t be rude.”
“I’m not being rude. I’m being good.”
She said she was leaving and we hugged. I whispered I loved her and said “take care, babe.”
Her face scrunched with disdain. “Take care, babe.” ‘Take care’ was my parting for friends.
“I said I love you.”
“No you didn’t”
“Yeah, I said ‘I love you, take care babe’”
“Babe?” Hurt surfaced at the edges of her face. “Whatever. Nevermind. I’m getting upset.” And she left.