A Wifey for the Bad Boy(221)

I hovered the cursor over the 'send a message' button but I dared not take the plunge. I looked at the pictures again and saw that she had moved on from me. She was always one to look forward, and we were something from the past. I didn't want to go ruining that memory either. I also figured that if she had wanted to get in touch with me then she could have messaged me when she returned, and that was that. Shortly after seeing her I didn't feel like trawling through the site any longer so I turned my laptop off and crawled to bed.

Out of idle curiosity I checked my mails the following afternoon and was surprised to see that my inbox had a few messages, some of which were actually from people that I had sent messages too, and I know it was shallow but the fact that these people had chosen to reply to me did give me an ego boost, and I enjoyed the thrill. I was about to reply to the first one when I realized that Shannon had sent me a message. My heart caught in my throat and I stared at the message for a long time, almost not believing that she had messaged me. I clicked it, nerves reverberating through my body.

'Jenny, hey...surprised to see you on here, and a little sad that you didn't send me a message! Been a long time, would be great to catch up, shoot me a message when you're able x'

It was such a simple message, and so characteristic of her to keep things light and breezy. Before I knew it I was already tapping out a reply, and anxiously waiting the return message. To occupy my time I looked at the other messages that had been sent to me and I engaged in conversation with them, but I felt bad because I could only think of Shannon. She was the only one I wanted to talk to, the only one I wanted to hear back from, so when she finally did reply I instantly opened her message, not caring whether it made me seem to eager.

'You're looking good in your photos...yeah I got back a few months ago. Things happened, you know what life is like. It's nice to be back but it feels different to when I was here before, or maybe it's just that I'm different? Maybe I've been away for too long. I'm just surprised to see you on here because, well, I don't want to seem like a stalker but when I got back I looked you up on Facebook and saw that you were in a relationship. I figured that your girlfriend wouldn't have been impressed if you received a message from your ex, especially since I'm sure you told her how intense things were between us ;). But I'm guessing things didn't work out? I'm here to talk about it if you need to. X'

'I totally know what you mean. I haven't left and even I think the place has changed, but yeah maybe it's just because we're getting older or something. Well, I've never had a stalker before so that's something to cross off the bucket list but I would have liked it if you said hi, I can understand why you didn't though. But yeah, we were having problems then anyway, it's a long story, maybe I'll tell you sometime. Things are still a bit raw, you know? To be honest I'm not even sure why I'm on this thing, it's just so hard to meet people nowadays. You mentioned on your profile that you'd just gone through a breakup, same deal goes for you. If you need to talk about it, I'm here. X'

I decided not to acknowledge the comment about the intense sex between us, but it did send a flush of arousal surging through my body. Shannon was always good at making me feel good about myself. Whenever she gave me a compliment she had a way of saying it that made me feel like she had never said the words to anyone else, and she always made me feel special.

'Yeah tell me about it, god, I feel so much older than I did when we were together! That seems so long ago now...so much has happened and I can't even begin to tell you everything. All I know is that everything feels more important now. When I was younger I didn't care if something didn't work out because, hey, there was always tomorrow, but now I'm almost thirty and everything has this weight to it, like I'm going to be locked into a choice forever. Don't worry about it, break-ups are never easy, sounds heavy. I know mine wasn't and thanks for your offer. I don't want to bore you with the details but actually it was kinda similar to what happened with me and you. I was coming back home and he wanted to stay there but this time he asked me to keep things going long distance, and I agreed, figured that we could make it work because we had been talking of spending the future together, even kids and everything (I know, me, talk about kids, who can believe it, right?) And he promised that he would come and see me because I told him that there was no point having a long distance thing if there wasn't a point when we could see each other, and the first time he was supposed to come up he canceled. Then it became harder and harder to get to each other on Skype and I didn't need the hassle of it, so the last time we called we had this big row and he tried to tell me that he was sorry and he would do better but I can't be dealing with that. I just need someone who is reliable. Anyway, so I thought I'd try this thing because, as I'm sure you've experienced, it's hard to meet new people, and I can't just go up to anyone on a bench and start speaking to them anymore! But this isn't great. Too many timewasters. Have you met up with anyone yet? I've had a few first dates but never any second ones...maybe we can grab a drink soon? It'd be great to have a proper conversation again, let me know when you're free x'