Her smile is luminous;it expels energy into the world all around her. My heart aches as her smile widens. She’s beautiful and radiant as always, but she’s different now - free, almost as if she’s untouchable.
Fuck!My mind starts to scramble; my mouth is at a total loss for words.
I quickly turn on my heel and rush to exit the bar before she spots me - it wouldn’t be hard. I’m naturally quite tall anyway but if that doesn’t put a spotlight on me, the fact that I’m standing and staring open-mouthed at her, that would sure do it.
I pull out my phone and shoot a text to my friends. I’ve only been back in town a couple of days, I’m sure they’ll be able to wait another day for our long-awaited boy’s night.
I must admit I don’t come back to town as much as I should, more often than not I’ll fly momma out to see me instead. She’s never once complained but I think that’s because she knows, even after all this time, it’s still too painful for me to come back here.
I hate that. I loathe it entirely. The fact that I can’t come back to a town I grew up in because I got my heart broken when I was in high school - it’s downright pathetic.
She may have been, in my mind, ‘the one’ but that doesn’t excuse the fact that I should’ve moved on bynow- years after the fact.
Another very small reason I don’t like to visit, my hatred - for her and for myself. The woman who walked away, so easily leaving me behind, broken and battered. It’s also where my self-hatred stems from, the fact that I let her make me feel that way. She made me feel so weak and helpless, I hated how little control I had over that situation.
From that day forward I knew I’d never let anyone have that control over me again. I remember in high school, I had thought all those guys that slept around had no idea what they were missing. Turns out I maybe should’ve been paying more attention, because as I watched Ellie walk out of my life forever I was thinking maybe they did know what they were missing.
I lean against the car and breathe a deep breath trying to clear the haze that I’ve somehow gotten myself lost in. This is what she does to me, she makes me crazy. The fact that I want to both run to her and run from her is the definition of insanity in my book.
I finish typing out the text to Davey and Simon. I ask if we can meet tomorrow for lunch instead. Simon replies more or less straight away, easily agreeing to the change of plans. I’m staying with Lynch so I’ll just talk to him about the change of plans when I get back to the house.
It’s not until I’m exiting the messages app on my phone that the date on the calendar catches my attention.Shit!
No wonder she’s out having a good time, it’s her and Evan’s birthday. If I had have known that beforehand, I wouldn’t have bothered to make plans for tonight.
The sudden realization has me feeling like a major dick. If Ellie is here celebrating her birthday I have no doubt that Evan is close by celebrating as well. Those two were always oddly close, even for twins, but I’d always gotten along with Ellie’s family - especially her twin brother Evan. If it had been him I’d seen, it would’ve been a different story, I would’ve gone up to him to wish him a happy birthday. I might’ve even tried to strike up a conversation like I would with an old buddy. As far as I’m concerned there’s no bad beef between Evan and me.
