I didn’t understand how a guy who had been so kind, who’d had all the right words to say, could have stood speechless before me, and then disappeared. Seemingly out of the blue, he’d refused to talk before walking out my door. I pressed my tongue between my curled-in lips as I shook my head at the memory. The low guttural sounds vibrating my chest were all I could get out now, too. Of course, I had no one to talk to anyway. Didn’t want to end up the talk of the apartment building by becoming the woman who talked out loud to herself on her balcony. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that such a gentle lover had been so cruel as to skip out on me right after.
Would it forever evade me, the reasoning behind the timing of it all?
I’d told him about the attack, the fear and pain of being tackled to the ground and mugged last weekend. I’d not left out a thing. Even details I’d denied myself until that moment, I’d let fall from my mouth. I’d have sworn at that moment that I could tell him anything. And, I had shared secrets about my writing and my wolf spirit that I’d held close to me, never even shared with my best friend. At those points, he’d seemed touched by my freedom of speech, where he was concerned. He’d been so easy to talk to. Maybe too easy, but still... he’d seemed interested. Genuinely interested in every word I had to say, in all my thoughts and my dreams, along with the way I viewed the world. Yet, as soon as I’d mentioned the wolf who had saved me from the mugger, he’d fled.
There had to be a connection there. Surely that wolf couldn’t have seemed any more insane than the story of my wolf spirit. Yet, it had to be something I’d said. The wolf thing out, I went back through the story again. And, again. I searched each word, each movement like a scientist on the midst of a breakthrough who just couldn’t catch that final break. I hungered for any morsel, any tidbit of an answer, even as my stomach growled for real food.
“Could he have been my mugger?” I said out loud, startling myself with the squeaky voice that emanated from me.
I stopped to look around at the balconies around me. No one sat on any of them. It was a little too cold this time of year, our first days out of the seventies this season. But, I didn’t care. I didn’t even feel it. Instead, I placed my hand on my rumbling stomach as I caught my breath. My thoughts had worked me physically into a stressed-out state.
Mugger? Really? Sure, he was your mugger. Then he couldn’t believe his luck when he met you in the bar. He brought you home to devour you sexually so he could leave once you fell asleep with everything valuable you own, I talked to myself, my voice snarky even in my head.
The whole train of thought proved ridiculous. Obviously, anyone who saw my apartment would quickly realize I had nothing. From there, the whole insane idea did a downward spiral, if ever possible at all. Could it be he hadn’t recognized me, not until I’d related my story? His car and clothes didn’t make it appear that he needed for anything. Still it seemed more the mention of the wolf that had set him off. Or, maybe that was just the point at which his guilt had taken over.
“Shut up,” I scolded myself and looked around again.
Lex was not your attacker! It’s improbable, at the least. Move on!
Taking my own advice, listening to my intuition, I chose to believe in what I’d seen and heard from him last night before things had gone south. I made a conscious decision to hold onto every amazing thing he’d said about me, about my beauty, as truth. I’d felt the sincerity, and I trusted my instincts. They hadn’t failed me yet. Even last night, despite the way it had ended, having listened to my instincts at first about Lex had gotten me about the best night of my almost non-existent dating life.
I had to hold onto that even if it was all I’d ever get, even if it remained just a one night stand. The screeching of tires followed by a car horn, one held far too long, pulled me from my obsessive thoughts.
Asshole, I thought about the jerk who’d blown the horn. New York City drivers, easy to piss off and hard to calm down. I wondered if the jerk I could hear yelling about the other guy not looking behind him before he’d backed out of the space had just come from church this fine Sunday morning. It was about that time. Besides, if you didn’t go to church or work on Sunday, you slept in. The incident had happened in the side parking lot, though, so I couldn’t see the people involved. I strained my neck, despite the clear impossibility of being able to see anything. It was official. I’d lost it, and was just looking for any distraction.