Page 40 of Man Flu

“So, what is this?”

“I want you.”

“Who says that?” I ask, throwing my hands in the air.

“A thirty-five-year-old man who knows what he wants when he sees it.” How the hell do I respond to that? “Coffee or Tea? Or should I say, shits or no shits?”

“Tea,” I snarl. The only reason I’m not going in with him is that I don’t want anyone to see us together. “Here, let me give you money.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, then closes the door before I have a chance to argue.

During the time I managed to graduate college, become a wife, a mother, and an ex-wife, I seem to have forgotten the girl I once was—the one who played mind-games with the guys who played hard to get until I lost interest. I was the one who never let anyone close enough to know what was going through my mind. Now, like the weak skin beneath my stretch marks, my thoughts can be penetrated without much force.

If Logan wants to play mind games. I can play too. The old me—and the real me is still here somewhere. I just need to relocate the parts.

The reminiscence of playing games brings my wandering eyes to my phone and Words With Friends, hoping to see a notification I might have missed from Dickle. My sweet Dickle, who I pushed away too many times.

There’s nothing but a new game request from him. I open the game board, finding the letters spelling out the word, sigh.

I scan my letters, looking for anything I can respond to his sigh with. Rather than concerning myself with points, I use my “I” to add beneath his “H.” His turn.