Distractions (D. SWING)

Alternate I

Best Case Scenario

It was so sudden.

Everything about it felt incomplete. I guess you can try to turn that into a sign of a better outcome but I'm not one to turn an inch into a mile when it comes to him. I'm dead to him. He's ignored my calls, my letters, my everything. I must be the bad guy now... But can you blame him? It was all so sudden. I can't help but feel that in another life things ended a lot worse and that feeling is the only inkling of hope I have that sometimes tells me I may have done something close to the right thing.

But is that enough?

"Okay, that's looking like enough for you." Buffy removes the wine bottle and glass that sit next to me, leaving me exposed to life without a crutch. The Pacific waves flood in, washing away fresh footprints that sat atop of the grainy shore. "I don't want you beating yourself up over this." She pushes me over on the lounge chair, forcing her small frame to fit next to me. Her fingers rest behind my ear as they trail up to massage my scalp.

Emotions still raw three months later, I thank God that Buffy came back. "I really fucked up. I could've done that so much better."

She hesitates upon answering. "You... Well, yeah... You could have but you did the best you could do with what you were given. It was sticky from the beginning." I sigh at her harsh truth. I'm too fragile for details right now. "You told him to come back to you when he feels ready. You have to see it through. You can't go back looking for him after setting him free."

"What if he never comes back?"

The look in her eyes is a scold for asking an obvious question. Her head falls back on the chair. "Then he was never yours," reminds Buffy.

"He erased me out of his life. I read the—" I jump up from the shared seat with Buffy. Angrily, she storms after me. She's been taking anything I got my hands on that was apart of Jodeci's promo after I stumbled across the fact that he was fucking Madonna as I read the NY Times, only looking to see what Dalvin had to say. DeVante never spoke to the papers. He knew I'd see it.

Chasing after me and hot on my ass, Buffy yells, "I told you not to read that!"

"The cable went out with the rain and you hadn't come back. It was either that or clear the liquor cabinets," I holler over my shoulder. I pick up the magazine when I make it to the island, the longest counter top of the kitchen. "Listen to this bullshit!" My nails flip through the pages at a rate that makes it obvious I've read their cover issue from the front to the back. "Sex is dope but it's Money Over Bitches? My writing shows that I'm a lonely person?"

Sighing, Buffy settles on a bar stool. "The interview was last minute. It happened like two days after you guys broke up, Adrienne already told me."

"Cry for You... I'm crying for this bitch, I'm still not with the bitch."

"That's enough. Give me the damn magazine," Buffy snatches it out of my hand with ease.

I knew he was capable of it but I never thought it'd be me. I think what it makes it so bad is that only people genuinely in our lives know what he's done. The intimacy of his malicious acts leave me wounded and ashamed. His specificity and his details in these supposed hypotheticals are direct. No wonder he hasn't returned my calls. The entire thing is purely him. Diary of A Mad, Pissed Off, Playboy in New York City. It feels beyond personal. I feel his every word directed at me.

Strictly from my mind, I quote the article word for word as Buffy tosses the magazine in her bag rather than throwing it away. "So if somebody came by all fly, big ass, tight dress—see her pussy print— beautiful eyes and all that shit, you wouldn't even see that bitch. All you'd be thinking about is your girl at home... So then I ask myself, have I really loved?"