Reaching for his wine, he looked nervous. I know I was, he was slowly morphing into familiarity. As much as I wanted more, I could not shake the feeling that this was a dead-end connection. I looked around me as I buttoned up my coat, did we look like strangers to everybody around us? Was the tension sharp enough to cut their steak?
The truth was, I was triggered. Was it possible for potential to shape-shift into your greatest hurts? Was this another guy I had fallen for too deeply before we had crossed the finish line? His aura was radiating uncertainty towards me, I needed a big hug from the girls and a pitcher of sex on the beach.
How long could this go on for? How long could I hold onto another maybe before going completely insane? Realistically, I couldn’t. I had already been here, too many times before, and I still had the emotional scarring. I went into the loo before we left the restaurant, desperately needing breathing space and a moment to gather my thoughts. I looked at myself in the mirror, but I wasn’t looking at my own face – Nor was I looking at the guy waiting for me outside under an Autumn sky, but the ever haunting ghosts from my past. After all the pain and the time it took to move forward… how had I managed to stumble across them again in somebody else?
I didn’t know where the pain was coming from now or which guy had me aching so much. I met him outside and we parted, him with his uncertainty and me with my familiarity. I then met the girls for that pitcher and hugs, before venturing carefully onto the Instagram accounts I feared the most, creeping with caution, as if they were haunted houses.
