Every little sound my phone made had me lunging for it like a baseball player trying to steal third. And every time it turned out to be someone else. I tried to live my life like I normally would, but I was acting like a teenager. I'd never met a man who could keep my phone attached to me like a third arm, and I was irked with myself for it.
Every morning, I woke up, checked my phone, always void of Dylan's name, then I went to the bathroom. Maybe I showered, maybe I peed, it was all kind of a blur, which was a little ironic considering the days felt years long. I checked my phone again. Breakfast was next, if I was feeling it, then again, I looked at the screen hoping for good news. Throughout the rest of the day, I never strayed from my phone for more than a minute.
Rinse and repeat.
For two weeks, that's what I did, and at the end of the day, it was always an empty phone. I came to the conclusion that anyone would come to: he chose Britt over me. I'd known this for a week and a half, but I wouldn't let myself believe it. I wished Jaden still lived with me, but she and her husband found a place of their own, and this left me to suffer in silence.
"He'll call tomorrow," I told myself. What I didn't know was that tomorrow was a relative term. Tomorrow was never going to be today. His rejection hurt. I was stupid for falling in love with him. I knew I shouldn't have right from the start.
So I asked myself, "What do you do when your soulmate doesn't want you?" The answer was easy. You go to a bar and drink away the pain. I did just that. Well, I was doing just that.
I flagged the bartender to pour me another White Russian. It was my third one in two hours, and my eye sight was fuzzy as I stared at a little nick in the wooden bar. I picked at it with my nail, not really trying to make it bigger.
"You're not waiting for someone, are you?" The bartender, who's name was Bill, asked like he just figured out that I was alone.
I puffed out my lips in a heavy sigh, staring at my glass as he mixed me another drink. "I've been waiting for weeks." I thanked him when he slid the drink over to me, and I immediately started sipping on it. I wasn't nearly drunk enough. I knew that because I knew tomorrow I would remember Bill's attempt at conversation, and I didn't want to.
"So this is about a guy?" he said, flinging a white towel over his shoulder and leaning against the counter on his elbows. The bar was relatively empty, so it wasn't like Bill had anything else to do. I saw maybe six other people here, only two of which were sitting at the bar around me.
"No," I replied after a large gulp. My taste buds were numb enough to allow that. "Not just any guy."
"Your boyfriend?"
I huffed a cynical laugh. "No. He's not that either. He never has been."
"So what is he then?"
"He's...my soulmate," I murmured through a frown as I played with the glass in my hands to keep me from having to look at Bill. "He chose someone else." I thought it would get easier the more I said it, but it didn't. My throat still got a little tighter and my heart stung a little more each time the words even crossed my mind.
Bill didn't respond to me, which made it worse. To keep myself from crying, I took another drink of my Russian. By the time I set the glass down, Bill had placed a shot glass full of vodka on the bar in front of me.
"It's on me," he said piteously. I forced a tiny smile and he walked away. My fingers curled around the glass, but I just stared at it, twisting it between my fingers. Dylan didn't want me. Everyone has only one soulmate in the world, and mine didn't want me. Go figure.
