dreamland

seven

I stopped counting the months and days since I'd last seen you because all it did was cause more harm than good.

Every time the sound of your name came up, even if it was about some other guy that was being spoken about, my friends would all murmur what a dick or what an asshole you were.

I would look elsewhere those first few times but afterwards I started to join in.
It's like all the numbness, all the empty sadness I would feel those first few months was replaced with pure anger.

I was just so angry with what you had done to me. I was so angry, at you, at your best friend. But now it has all turned into something I shake off my skin.
I wipe it off like lint on my favorite sweater or a fallen leaf from a tree, I pull it out my hair. I look right past it.

I think it's been a little over a year since I last saw you. I can't deny that I still manage to find pieces of you lingering on my clothing and on my sheets and in my car. I've just become so good at ignoring this and pushing it away, especially now that he has come around.

He wasn't pulling tricks like you and wasn't telling me things that could never be true; I was beyond fine with that.

He was honest and forthright and it was fucking refreshing.

He was cheeky with the way he spoke and had the face that hid nothing of what he felt for you. That is if he even thought about you.

I wanted in. I wanted to know more of him than just rude remarks and that seeming to know-it-all attitude. Just like that, it came sudden to me, like a large wave comes during high tide.

I'd met him at a party, I thought he was such a fucking pain with his correctiveness. He simply had to point everything out. Or maybe I really was bitter as he called me. I don't know. After what had happened, I couldn't tell if I was just being a downer during the rom-coms or if I was just throwing shade like us girls do. I remember being so taken aback that I instantly wanted to tell him to fuck off. Instead I sipped my beer, the cool rim of the bottle on my lips as I stared him down because I didn't know what my next move would be. He knew I didn't know what to do next either. Because his eyes just smirked at me and I remember just telling him to fuck off. That's all I really knew how to do, tell someone to fuck off. But he wasn't done with the fucking backtalk, he told me to fuck off as I had come his way and not the other way around. I sipped my beer again, calmly, before just letting the last drop drip on his stupid face and stupid shirt. He saw it coming too I think, he laughed and licked his lips, mmm, he said just to tip it all off. I turned on my heel and curled my fist around the bottle before letting the bottle go. The bottle dropped and crashed around my shoes as his laugh only grew louder.

It was back and forth this way for so long. It was mindless bickering and me glaring at him as he winked at me across the room. I kept telling my friends, God, he is just such a dick, he doesn't know anything. My friends would all give each other pointed looks but nod their heads even though they didn't agree. I didn't see it yet but I soon would.

I stumbled into him one very late night at the corner gas station. I had been driving in circles thinking about just him and about you, yes you, and about the paper that was ‪due on Wednesday‬. I kept thinking how irritating he was, just so irritating, no one likes a know-it-all.

I drove until I stopped and saw the neon sign that red twenty four hours.

It's like I said, I prided myself in getting what I wanted and now he was what I wanted.

It hadn't hit me yet, but on that night it hit me like a bucket of ice over my head. He was new to town and so far, all I knew was that he fixed cars and bikes and that most people thought he was an asshole.