Falling For Casual

Chapter 10

   There's something so dangerous about romanticizing people and future situations that you'll be in. Something as simple as daydreaming, hoping, wishing, can turn things into this ugly cloud of disappointment. It can make the most mundane things seem ethereal, untouchable almost. Putting on those glasses that distort your vision from reality and let you feed into this fantasy, makes the world seem worthless. I do it too often. I build people up in my mind with such a small amount of what they've given me and turn them into a work of fiction. I can't help it. And as much as I try, I can't stop it. The cycle continues until my entire life, every small moment that I've thought up to be something else, makes my shoulders slack and my lips turn down with that sense of lack.

   Is it because I'm a writer that I turn reality into something better, something worth having and holding on to? Maybe. Maybe life is better in my head and people are much brighter in my eyes with the glasses of who I want them to be rather than who they actually are. Is it honestly my fault that I was more impressed with the characters written in the books I held, the romance that I thought was worth fighting for? Could I be blamed for wanting those words stamped on those pages to come to life and be said to me? How many times had I watched someone run through an airport to get the love of their life back in the movies? How many scenes replayed right in front of my eyes on that screen as I memorized every love confession, every desperate word someone would say to show how much their heart yearned for a person they could no longer live without?

   It has been and always will be my downfall. I'm not too proud to know that living my life this way will only lead to heartbreak. And yet, I won't stop it. Not until I'm on my deathbed and all the hope I have is officially gone.

   I swiveled myself on the barstool, my drink in my left hand and the red bag that held my gift for Texas in the other. He sat in front of me, his own drink on the bar. With a deep sigh, I gently thrusted the gift towards him, taking the one he'd made for me in return. I didn't want him to see what it was that was hiding in the bottom of that bag. After everything that'd just happened, or shall I say everything that didn't happen, I wanted to take the paper that had my lipstick-stained kisses and my watercolor hearts and run home where I could throw it under my bed and never think about it again.

   I couldn't fathom the thought of him holding something as precious as the words I'd written for him. Chugging my drink hungrily, the emptiness in my stomach no doubt making me regret the alcohol I was consuming, I watched him reach into the bag with his large hands. The paper in them looked three times smaller than it had in mine. It was the perfect representation of how I felt. I was shrinking in his massive hands and not in the way I wanted to. I was becoming a shell of who I was yesterday. The excitement I once had was now something I couldn't even find inside me. Even as I watched his brown eyes scan over the words that my heart had thought up for him, I felt like I was sitting in front of someone I didn't know.

   His words became drowned out by the buzzing in my head. I watched his mouth recite the words 'thank you', but the rest I couldn't make out. Forcing myself to smile, I leaned in and let him kiss me. His lips felt warm, but the heat didn't penetrate the shield I was now putting up between us.

   "Your turn," he said, jerking his chin at the gift in my hands. I took two long gulps of my drink before unrolling the material. It felt rough, a little thicker than the paper I had given him, and much more flexible. Unrolling it, I was met with a single petaled flower in a field, the clouds behind it almost blending into the petal itself, as if the sky and the flower were connected in a sense. I turned it over and read the words 'love me...love me lot!!!' written in black, the contrast from the front image catching me off guard. And right there in the top right corner was his name. Not just his first, but his middle name following right after.