Assistant manager- [M.S]

31

June 20.

The human memory is a funny thing.

Maybe sometimes it isn't as funny, but right now, I feel like laughing.

What I mean is, it is crazy the way a certain smell can take you back ten years, or how a certain sound can remind you of someone you met one time.

Or maybe the way that looking at a black leather jacket draped over a chair in your hotel room plays a movie in your mind like one you see on a silver screen.

I have not stopped staring at it, and part of me is almost too scared to even touch it. I have this fear that maybe it is all in my imagination, like it is a hologram or something and if I touch it, my hand will fall right through.

So to avoid immense disappointment, I stay sat on my bed, staring at the material while memories from last night start to rush back into my mind

The way we put on a show for Sherry and pretended we were a couple.

The way we linked arms and shared a slice of an anniversary cake.

The way Matt came up with a fake date for us to celebrate our fake anniversary, the one we were not able to achieve because of the upcoming weather.

The way he held my hand for a few minutes while we walked.

The way we kissed under a broken streetlight, and the way it poured on us afterwards.

The way he smiled at me while he held this jacket over us as we dashed back to the hotel, and the way he teased me about my ripped shoe when it filled with water from the storm.

The way he left the jacket for me when he saw me shivering from the rain.

The way he never even asked for it back.

Maybe laughter isn't the right thing to show how I feel right now, and maybe it's actually just to cover up what I'm really feeling.

Which is confused as fuck.

This isn't what I wanted to happen, and this was not the plan at all.

Am I mad about it?

No, but I have no clue what to do now.

I don't know what I feel, and I don't know what I want to happen, but I know after last night that the Matt I spent time with is not the same Matt  I met three weeks ago.

This is why hook-ups are not for me. I knew it would never be just hooking up.

I wish everything was easier. I wish I had a clear sign about how I felt, and I wish more than anything that I knew what was going through Matt's head right now. If he's sitting in his room thinking about this like I am, or if he has completely forgotten about it and moved on like it never happened.

My head turns to the side table next to my bed, finding the book he had flipped through a few days ago and asked to read.

I need an excuse to see him, and this book is the perfect answer.

I would have never expected that a book would guide me to Matt, but here we are.

Hell, I don't know what to expect anymore.

I grab the leather jacket too, surprising myself when I can touch it and realize it is real and everything that happened last night wasn't a cruel act played by my imagination.

Walking with him was real.

Kissing him was real.

We have kissed more times than I can count at this point, but last night was different in so many ways.