An invitation from an ex took me out of town on Sunday evening. Turning onto his street, I was nervous. Not just because of the warehouses and dark empty roads stretching before me, not just because my Nuvi frantically begged me to take a series of immediate lefts and get the hell out of that neighborhood. I was nervous in the way I always am when it comes to this guy, but even that wasn’t my foremost anxiety.
I just had to get through dinner with him. That’s it. One little meal. I was scheduled for multiple meals with multiple strangers on Tuesday and Wednesday, but those were nothing comparable. I didn’t care if I made a genuine connection with the strangers. This, on the other hand, felt like a test of all the decisions I made that affected the two of us. What if we had nothing to talk about? What if we couldn’t agree on a type of pizza, what if we listened to each other chew and stared at the TV above the bar? I guess that would have been a relief, because I would have known I was right to end it.
We settled on BBQ pizza with bacon and corn (Yes, corn. Weird, right? It actually wasn't bad). He asked if we could get thin crust, which happens to be the only crust for me. When the waitress arrived, he ordered wheat rather than white, just as I would have.
I’d like to think common ground was discovered where it seemed none existed, but maybe I'm just being fanciful. The same old obstacles hadn't disappeared, however: Calculator vs color wheel. Logic vs intuition. I heartlessly ignored his pain because he caused mine. Who did the greater damage? Who is to blame? Is there a friendship worth salvaging? Why are we even still talking about this?
Back in the black and white, I knew there were a couple of things I wanted from life. I wanted to be looked at every day the way I'd catch him smoldering at me when he thought I wouldn’t notice. In the way you give before you learn not to, everything I had was his. But it should come as no surprise that we killed the good stuff with our blatant disrespect for each other. There were certainly no smoldering glances on this occasion.
I feel ridiculous for even peering down this road again. It's like looking back over my tan teenage shoulder; trusting that girl, with her black-from-a-box hair and roller coaster wants, was never easy. She wanted to be grown-up, but she wasn't. Now she is, and she wants to go back.
Well little girl, it's too late. Time travel is impossible. Let's be honest--teleportation is much more practical. Work to beach in seconds.