My Mistake, Rachelle Denhof [snow like ashes series TXT] 📗

MY MISTAKE- based on a true story

I love my studio apartment.  Yeah my pint-sized kitchen and fat-free fridge miniature as they are still manage to take up half of my living room/bedroom, but what’s important is my bathroom is huge.  It’s where I spend most of my time, my sanctuary and source of mojo, now  filled with the echoes of jazzy soul diva Jill Scott  blasting from my computer speakers.  I wonder as I dance with my favorite skinny jeans on in the mirror, if the neighboring house can see me through my huge bathroom window.   Tonight was gorgeous, a sunset the color of orange juice, accompanied by a tickling breeze cool enough for me to wear my new scarf.  It’s been almost two month’s since I’ve seen Ricky, so I want to make sure I don’t disappoint his fondest memory of me.  Since I already live downtown, and I don’t drive I might as well walk and meet him at Chang’s Chinese restaurant, after all its only a couple of blocks away.

Anxious to drill my nerves out like a jackhammer on the sidewalk I find myself skipping down the block listening to pandora, and enjoying the wind in my hair almost sad I have reached my destination so quickly. Ricky glances at his watch, when he looks through the window at me from the Chinese restaurant, as if I burst through a classroom door in the middle of his lecture.I give my usual wave and rush in to meet him at the counter.  Butterflies dance around my stomach, and I can barely look into his eyes.  How does he do that? Ughh. He has a slim physique, and wears his favorite khaki's like it’s a religious requirement.  I find him romantic in a raw and quirky kind of way. When I look at him I’m reminded of our first date, slow dancing on a private beach listening to music.  Always a pair of headphones around his neck, he is as in love with music as I am.  With sarcastic confidence he attempts to cover his shy inner child, and the fact that I'm a couple years older than him eggs on this shield.  I give my usual wave and rush in to meet him at the counter.

As I take a good look at him I begin to ask myself the question I’ve been avoiding a truthful answer too: Why did I cover up my feelings for him like a bad breakout and run away?  Maybe it was the ex-girlfriend that he referred to as just a friend.  Maybe I didn’t even want to know the truth.  And Sheesh! Why every time we attend somewhere the awkward question: "together or separate?"...separate I always answer. I guess the real conversation is closing in on me, and I again realize what I have avoided: I may really have feelings for him.  

After nearly two months gapped between our last encounter I decide to avoid the inevitable answers that were gnawing at my gut with,"hows life"?  He looks up at me with disbelief.  Ricky decides to do what he does best, counters my passive-aggressive b.s. with an honesty I didn’t want to believe.  “I waited by the phone for you but didn’t even get a hello for a reply for months with any warning”.  I reply with silence, my best weapon. But as I look into his eyes inside I’m quivering with self control almost lost, I retaliate with “what about your girlfriend”?  Ha! I’m thinking, checkmate. He explained that while she was an ex-girlfriend, the love notes I saw on facebook were just her desperate attempt for reconnection.  That he broke up with her before he and I met. After guarding myself with disbelief in order to preserve my own feelings I totally disregarded his.  Yes but he should have explained further.  This couldn’t have been as real as I felt it, no that’s too good to be true.  Too much inner dialogue, I’m driving myself crazy.I’m supposed to keep smooth as sonnet. As I look up at him speechless, a rush of emotion I don’t want to decipher washes over him and he asks me to leave and give him moment alone.  Suddenly my ammunition that carried so much justification in my head now seemed as petty as a gun brought to a knife fight. All for the sake of self preservation, have I frozen any chances for emotional evolution?This is going to kill me later I know, but too late now, time to put my game face on and hopefully salvage a friendship. My mistake.

Publication Date: 08-05-2014

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