Out Of My Life

"You only want what you can't have," she screamed at me with tears brimming her eyes, the light turning the tears silver and allowed me to see the swirls of her black mascara mixing with her tears.

She didn't know that I have been in love with her since day one, but I've been once bitten and twice shy about showing my emotions to anyone since the day that my ex-fiancée confessed the sins that ended the relationship. The woman standing in front of me now didn't know that she had been dancing in an out of my dreams night in and night out.

She had texted me last week, "Hey friend! We're going to be in Philly next weekend. Can you make some time to hang out?" "Hey! I've wanted to try this new restaurant...," my reply was sincere and my buddies had been talking about a new restaurant that had popped up since the last time I was there, which was with her and her fiancé and future brother-in-law before this mess with COVID. I spent most of the day with the BIL watching the two love birds from a far, seeing how happy she seemed. The thoughts in the back of my mind always swirling around "what-ifs" and "I could make her happier."

I had been careful in the past when meeting with her to remain sober. Not drinking too much, that "in vino veritas" becomes my weakness. I would rather have her in my life as a friend then not at all. She has this power to light up a person's life with her quick wit and sense of humor. There was a night I messed it all up with a drunken text and had she been drinking too...another what-if.

I don't know what powers that be told me I could handle my alcohol that night. I was four beers in, so was the fiancé. She only had soda. No drinks for the driver. She's always the driver. She always complains that she doesn't get to have any "fun." The fiancé got up to use the restroom...again. I wonder how many dates has she been on that she spent mostly alone because this guy spends so much time in the bathroom.

"I love you. You are making a mistake," I blurted out. Fear and disbelief stretching my eyes wide. She read the fear there, "I'm going to call bullshit because you're four beers in Hunt."

I should have just left it go, but my beer soaked mind and soul pressed the issue.

"You look miserable, I can tell you are not happy. You're only marrying him, so you're not lonely."

When we had first met she warned me that she had an Irish temper passed down through her father's side of the family. A temper that was marked by stubbornness, a low tolerance for bullshit and as she put it, "flying off the handle" when she gets pissed. I never believed her because she was soft spoken and a little timid the times we were together. This was the first time in the years of our friendship that I was on the receiving end of that temper and it was not a place I wished to be in ever again. The warmth vanished from her chocolate brown eyes, turning them icy and hard. Her smile was replaced by a twisted frown that screamed fury but with a touch of pain.

"You're not in love with me. You're in love with the idea of me. I'm not that same childish woman you slept with, once, seven years ago. I've lost people that I care deeply about. I've been homeless. I spent YEARS with a teenaged school-girl dream that you would just show up one day and sweep me off my feet. Then I met Dean, and he showed me what love is. He's been there. Seen me at my worst and my most vulnerable, and he held me through it all. I would never do anything to hurt him the way you have been hurt in the past. I loved you and I spent years telling myself that I was crazy. Crazy to think that you would give up everything that you have worked for in your life, move to another state, all for the name of love. Why do you think I despise Hallmark movies? It's what I wanted. You only want what you can't have."

She wiped at her eyes the tears falling freeing now, smudging the corners in the process. I didn't know when Dean joined us again, but she grabbed him by the hand and led him out the door and out of my life.