After Goodbye

Chapter 11: Friend U Can Keep (Part 2)

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🎶
You're something like my kryptonite.

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"I, um, left my purse." A breathless Victoria said as she shyly stood before me, her eyes flickered between the ground and my face. A look of surprise was painted clear as day on it as her own cheeks flushed harshly under my wide-eyed gaze. "Oh-oh, uh, come in." I mumbled, trying my best to regain what little composure I could muster. I stepped aside and allowed her to re-enter. Victoria quickly slid passed me and headed towards the living room as I closed the door and followed. After a few moments of wandering she located the forgotten item crassly stuck under the couch Sean had occupied and she'd been leaned up against. She hastily made her way over to it with a small breath of relief.

I continued to watch from a small distance, my hands intertwined behind my back as I rocked with an awkward anxiousness on my heels. Keeping my eyes focused anywhere but at the perplexingly gorgeous wandering woman, especially as she bent over to retrieve her signature Louis Vuitton bag. Standing straight once again, she turned towards me, a residue of red still tinged on her cheeks. "Sorry about that.." she quietly said, embarrassment evident in her face. The simple delicate, shy reaction resolved any lingering suspicions I had. The genuineness of her actions melting away the facade of intangible thoughts by just a timid look that lingered in her eyes.

"Don't worry about it. I'm glad you found it." She shrugged a nod. "Yeah, it only took me an entire ride home and the inability to enter my house to figure it out." She chuckled in light exasperation. "Yikes!" I mumbled remorsefully. "You're telling me." She scoffed a laugh, her self-annoyance noticeable at the shake of her head. "By the time I realized it Sean had drove off. I'm just lucky my garage is separate from my house and there was a keypad. Or I would've been a sitting duck."

"You could've called me, I would've brought it to you." I shrugged as I trailed my fingers across the back of the couch nearest to me. "Well, for one..." she wistfully began an air of exasperation in her tone as she shuffled through the red-lined brown leather bag, pulling her Apple device from its confines. She gave a firm-lined smile as she held it up.

"Oh.."

"Yeah, plus, I wouldn't want to make you drive all the way down there for my mistake." She explained. "You've already dealt with them enough." She added under her breath but I still heard her. Her eyes casted away for a moment as an unsettling silence enveloped us. "Vic..." I gently began to say. My eyes softening at her more meek demeanor.

"I didn't say that for sympathy." She quickly clarified with a firm disposition. "It's just a fact. I've accepted it and hopefully... I can also make up for." She leisurely searched her purse once again this time for her keys before closing it and finally meeting my awaiting eyes as I continued to bore into her. My eyes traced the features I'd come to know so well and had spent so much time memorizing. Every freckle on her skin a reminder of well I know this one, even as her words carried the air of established distance. I could feel myself frown a bit at the thought. I hated the distance between us quite frankly. I hated how awkward the space was no matter how necessary and needed it was to safeguard ourselves. I missed the knowing and I missed being known.