"I've been thinking about Piz a lot lately. More than I should be. Maybe it's because he's leaving soon. I keep thinking about how different the past few months would have been if we had stayed together. The lost potential. I don't know."
She was sharing an awesome meal and some of her favorite wine with a friend on that dreaded February 14th date. She was feeling pretty okay with where her life had been heading, and even though she had all but given up on the dating scene, she was okay with it. She was finally in a place where being single was okay.
Piz was still there though, in the back of her mind. He was leaving soon, and much as she tried to replace the last time they were together to the second to last time they were together, she still thought about how it had ended.
She felt the need to text him. What would she say? Everyone would tell her not to text him, to forget about him and move on. Maybe everyone would be right.
She was getting a little tired of not following her intuition and her heart. It hadn't gotten her anywhere she wanted to go. She had to do what felt right by her, and damn the consequences.
It took her three days to compose and adjust the text before she sent it.
"So, I know you are leaving soon. I wanted to wish you well, I know you are going to do amazing work. I'd like to get a drink with you before you go to say goodbye, but I understand if you don't want to see me. I just wanted to let you know there are no hard feelings on my end, and I hope you find/have found happiness."
It was adult, it was respectful, it was honest. She just wanted to erase that last night, get the taste out of her mouth. And if he didn't answer, then at least she cleared her side. She talked herself into not seeing a response from him.
In fact, she wasn't even thinking about it as she settled onto her yoga mat. As the first steps were beginning, her wrist vibrated a text message notification. She expected it to be BW seeing if she wanted to go to breakfast, or something from Twitter.
She was shocked to see Piz's name crawl across the display. "Thanks Penny, I appreciate the..." and the display cut off.
Needless to say, her yoga game was thrown all the way off. She tried her hardest to concentrate, but she went through the whole range of emotions trying to figure out what the whole message could possibly say.
"Are you okay?" Dawn asked her at the end of class.
"I got a response from Piz. I don't know what it says. And I've had a whole hour to work myself up about it."
They looked at it together.
"Thanks Penny I appreciate the kind words. No hard feelings on my end too. I'm sorry but I already left for Arizona."
Her breath caught in her throat. "Oh." She choked out, sitting down into a chair. The news hit her like bricks to the chest. He was already gone. She missed her shot. He didn't say goodbye. He didn't say anything. She forced herself to read the rest of the message.
"I'm not sure of my exact schedule yet but I should be back in town in the next couple of months. We should try to grab a drink then, I'll let you know. I hope everything is well."
Dawn's face lit up, and she exclaimed "This is good Penny! This is a good message! He wants to meet up for a drink when he's in town, that's good! Why are you so upset?"
Tears were now freely rolling down her face. She was feeling the emotions that she had yet to parse out. All she could say was "I didn't expect him to be gone already. He was supposed to leave on March 1st. He left early. He left me early."
She couldn't stop crying.
