The thing is, I couldn't have planned it any better. And that's always the thing with him, the thing that makes the sheer frustration of his presence so unbearable, that there is no way I could plan the interactions we have and have them actually end up so well, with us landing in each other's proximity.
And so, I broke my word again, because there were more people than him I wanted to see, rather than him I didn't want to see, and really, this time I resolved even if he was there I was going to ignore him completely and hold myself erect and proud and unawares of his eyes and his laugh and his body and his presence.
So I staked out a chair and wandered away and said hello to my friends. He was standing nearby and I could feel his eyes on me but I refused to meet them, didn't look up, stayed loyal to my friends. Out of my peripheral I noticed him coming toward me and even then it was nervousness that held me rigid more than resolve. He squeezed my shoulder like it was for life, like he was drowning and I was there to pull him out and I looked at him, with the nervousness and rigidness solid in my throat, as if I was going to vomit and I tried to smile, but I don't think I did and no words would come out. His eyes met mine and in them was also that same nervousness and panic and concern.
And then I realized I am hopelessly in love (or whatever it is you could call this) with him.
And I hate myself for it.
As if that wasn't enough, when I turned from my friends to my seat, I saw that he was sitting right next to my seat and had been sitting there before I even got there. So without meaning to, without even knowing, I picked the one seat in the entire bar right next to the magnetic disc. Of course.
I was horrified. I spent as much time as I could outside with the smokers (even smoking a few cigarettes out of sheer terror) and pretended to engage in meaningful conversation except all the while my brain was operating at ten thousand times its usual overworked capacity and all it was saying to me was What the fuck are we going to do now?! We're fucked!
And then, it was inevitable, I had to go in, I had to sit there, squished up next to him, his thigh jutting out toward mine, his work shirt on the bar in front of me, his hand on his beer, his fingernails, his hair, his face, everything just up closer than it has been in months.
He sat for a while talking to someone on the other side of him and because he was on the corner of the bar, he had to sit away from me, and maybe it was on purpose, for he held his hand up to his chin and blocked me from his vision the same way I have done many times in the past. I tried to ignore him as well, for some reason up close he was not so loud, so obnoxiously obvious everywhere and his eyes were trained away from me. I could almost pretend he wasn't there.
It was awkward, until it got worse and someone showed up, someone who the magnetic disc was angry that I got along so well with, and suddenly, I was between the two of them and I was so uncomfortable that it was almost laughable, that I was perched at this place I hated with two terrible prospects between me and a cloak of awkwardness smothering me.
Finally, he turned in our direction, the magnetic disc and things between us got slightly less awkward until I asked him the question that has been plaguing me for months: When are you leaving?
It was then that I found out that he will be here another year. And not just that, but he said nothing more about us, about me, about her, about what was to come. It was then that I knew that whatever the reason for his nervousness it was not from love, because he is not in love with me. I don't know what he feels for me, maybe some sense of regret, maybe some frustration, maybe some confusion, but it is not love (or infatuation or lust or wanting or interest or anything).
I fell into a tailspin then; I have been going through the motions and totally disinterested in life at large. I've spent the last two days since busy with work and let myself get swept up in the wave of my roommate's pleasurable company and tonight with another friend and I try to go to sleep with round eyes and dreams of falling and landing in my bed. Even now, I should be sleeping, but I can't stop feeling that moment, that slam of the door, that rush of understanding, that empty, that hollow ache, now there is nothing and no one who wants me.
That is what it's really been all about, that even though I knew I'd dodged a bullet with him and the universe saved me from complete and utter disarray in my life, I had some solace in the idea that maybe he was in love with me, and maybe someday I could turn to that love and find something worth feeling, at least for a little while.
I left knowing that I can never walk into that place again, at the very least, not for another year; and I am truly, completely alone.
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