Seattle Days
The days were short in Seattle, winter looming over the city. Clouds were a constant cover, most usually accompanied by freezing rain. I couldn't remember what the sun felt like on my skin, I had left it back at home in Virginia. July tenth, the first day of my adulthood, I grabbed a plane ticket and left with only minimal goodbyes. I told everyone I'd be back, I just needed some time to myself, to enjoy what I had wanted for so long in life. Truth be told though I only left because I needed a break from people who knew my name, I had too much history in a small town where no one could forget anything. But more importantly, I left on the hopes of forgetting a boy who hung around after his own graduation years before mine. He was what I wanted since the day I had met him, he was also the only person I had ever run from. No one, dare I say, had an impact on me quite like him, in more ways than one. Five years, one thousand eight hundred days, and it ended in me fleeing to the west coast just so I wouldn't have to see his face. It was strange to think back on all of it, honestly. He was a compulsive liar, the biggest I had ever met (other than my brother), and I was a fool to believe anything he'd say, at least in the beginning. Years and heartbreak made me wiser than that, but I guess you would want to believe that no matter what your partner would never lie to you. Love makes us all fools at first I suppose. Part of me wanted to know how he was doing, if his life ever became what he wanted it to be. I remembered him as a miserable man, angry at the world for his failures. He was excessively profane in much that he said but when called upon in the appropriate manner could assert himself as a gentleman. But all his angst built up had him lost of feeling, trust, and any sense of emotion. Trying to work things out with him was like trying to persuade a cement wall to move, it just couldn't be done. He usedto say he loved me, though he never showed it. And it was sad, truly. Mostly because I believed he loved me, I did; but I didn't believed him to have loved me enough to put down the life he was living and make me his only girl. Days would pass and my fingers would itch just to dial his number that was imprinted on my brain, but I knew I couldn't. If I did he would know he was on my mind, as always. I had tried my hardest to proclaim my love and convince him that yes, in fact, I was there for him, always and forever. But he abused my availability on more occasions than one without a single apology. He had lost all sense of empathy long ago. It would make me cry because I knew he was a good man deep down inside, and I tried over the years to be what he needed to bring that side of him to the surface but I just wasn't the girl for the job. Goodbye was just a word we would say to let the other person know this wasn't okay, but we never really meant it. Our relationship never made much sense to anyone, or even to us for that matter. But somehow we hung onto whatever we had for five years before I said I couldn't do it any more. And while the thought of him being with another makes me want to vomit, that's manageable. Being involved in a parasitic relationship, that was unhealthy.
The rain poured down on the city streets and I found myself seeking immediate shelter in a nearby coffee shop. The bell above the door rang throughout the shop to signify my entrance, the scent of coffee flooding my nostrils. Hopefully I had remembered to close up the studio windows before I had left, although there was no point in worrying over it now. I curled up in a large chair by the window, the dripping rain causing the street to look similar to that of an oil painting. My phone buzzed deep in my fleece pocket and I retrieved it to check the alert. My business partner and fellow artist, Cara, had sent me a text. My fingers navigated through the touch screen to open the message but I stopped as I became distracted by a separate alert that I had failed to feel earlier. I clicked on the notice to play a voicemail and listened closely to a voice I once found soothing.
"Hey Lex, it's me, uh I haven't seen you in a few weeks, people are saying you left town for Washington? Guess you've moved on so whatever, I miss you so much though. Just call me back I guess, or not."
A heavy breath left my nose, not quite making it to a laugh. I deleted the voicemail and got up to stand in line for a hot caramel coffee. When I went home, if I went home, and he was still there, I'd deal with him then. I was in no hurry though, this was my way of pressing pause on life. And nothing sickened me more than the thought of having to return to reality. You could say I was avoiding my problems, but I took no shame in that.