Ugh, Why Are You Like This?

She regretted the text as soon as she'd sent it.  She'd just sent out her last ditch effort text for someone to join her with ramen or sushi.  She was having a craving and since the weather had improved she'd been antsy to just stay outside of her apartment.

She needed a walk and talk, a D&M.  Instead, she sent out the text to Mel.

"You have to be at work tonight right?" She asked.

"Not until like 10pm, why?"

"I just wanted to get some ramen or sushi and wanted to see if you'd like to join."

"I can't, I have the play.  It's opening night."

"Oh, you got into the play?  You didn't tell me."

They chatted a bit longer, and he offered to take her to sushi the next week.  "Thanks for reaching out, it was really nice to hear from you." he ended.

She winced.  She had no dog in this fight any longer.  Why did she keep going back to this situation?

Validation is a real bitch.

Good Intentions, Bad Party

She had invited Mel to the work Christmas party.  The retirement party had gone so well that they decided they looked good dressed up together.

"After the Christmas party, I would really love to get some hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps, hop in an Uber, and go around looking at Christmas lights for an hour.  How does that sound to you?" Mel asked.

She was incredibly touched by the gesture and said that sounded really nice.

When she got off work he said he was just leaving his house, so she said she'd change and meet him there.  She had poured herself into a dress of Goldie's and some high heels she never got to wear out even though she'd owned them for years.  She checked in and walked around saying hello to everyone she worked with, until Mel texted her that he had just arrived.  She stood up and went to greet him at the door and immediately noticed he was exhausted.

"Did you have a hard day at work?  Are you okay?"  Normally she would have been happy to see him but she knew something had happened.  It had.  His "friend" had an emergency and he had driven 20 hours in the last 24 to help her out.

He only had a plateful of food, said he didn't feel well, and went home instead of their plans.  She told him it was okay, he needed to rest.

But she had a feeling in the pit of her stomach, depression and low self esteem starting to flow through her veins like a cold liquid.  She wasn't prioritized enough, to anyone.  Mel didn't want a relationship with her, Nameless was content with the occasional text and hook up.

She wasn't worth it.

Retired Habits Die Hard

"So what time should I be there for your boss' retirement party?" Mel asked via text.

There had been a miscommunication.  She had sworn he had said that he couldn't come, that he would be busy.  "No, that was earlier this week.  I'm free."

She scrambled and got her plus one back on the same day, and told him it was supposed to be pretty fancy.

He showed up on time, looking great in a suit as always.  His new mountain man look sort of negated his nice suit, but at least he was there.  He had, in fact, showed up for her for once.

"You look so beautiful tonight!" He said upon seeing her.  She blushed, said that it wasn't really her at all.  A friend had done her makeup and her hair, she couldn't take responsibility for any of it.  "Hey, you look beautiful.  Just you."  She smiled at him and they headed inside.

As they sipped their beverages and caught up during cocktail hour, she mentioned to him again that she really liked seeing him in a suit.  He smiled and said "I like getting dressed up and going places with you.  I'm really glad you asked me.  I've missed you."

She knew it was a bad idea at the time, but when speeches were happening, they held hands under the table.  Both of them wished there was coffee, and suddenly after dinner coffee was served and they both basked in the glory of a caffeinated second wind to the night.

The band started up and she decided that was a good time to go to the ladies room.  He followed suit and they met up and went to the bar where he ordered another cocktail, and she just grabbed her water to sip on as they listened to the band.  Her boss was very excited to perform, but she was distracted by all the signals Mel seemed to be throwing her way.

He looked into her eyes and restated: "I've really missed you." His gaze darted from her lips back to her eyes, silently asking permission.  She leaned in for a small chaste kiss.

"You wanna get out of here?"

"Yes"

Mel had recently moved into a new place, and gave her instructions on how to get there.  She ended up following him most of the way, and was surprised in how close it was to her apartment, just down the hill.

His dogs jumped all over her in greeting, and she used his bathroom to change into a more casual outfit than the semi-formal dress she had on.  He had recently been to the spot they went to last Autumn and picked up some apple wine which they tried to enjoy with the dogs climbing on top of them.

They listened to some of his vinyl records since his wifi hadn't been set up yet, and waiting for the dogs to calm down before they resumed their kissing and fooling around.  Once it got a little too hot and heavy and he said he "I really want to take you back there to my bed" that she pulled away.  She had work the next day and had to be going.

And she wasn't about to get disappointed by their lack of sexual chemistry again.  They might be great make out partners, but they would never be any more between them than that.

Alone Together Time

She'd been watching Goldie's dog for days, and she was feeling lonely.  And as always happens, once she was feeling the most lonely a man would text her, and keep her on a hook.  This time it was Mel instead of the usual line up.  He wanted to hang, but he was short on funds.  She suggested a movie night at Goldie's and they would pick up some cheap tacos for dinner.

As they sat around catching up while waiting for the tacos, he shared his plans for next week in Vegas meeting Cher and tooling around in a limo with his friend from the bar.  Later on in the month he was going to Peru, to take part in some sort of ritual.  "What do you hope to get out of that?"  She asked, he answered with a little bit of peace.  She said she hoped it would help him, and she meant it.

There was still something between them.  It was hard not to want the future that he wanted for himself; house, kids.  The dream.  As it stood now, they were just the same level of lonely.

He hadn't seen The Haunting of Hill House, so they watched the first couple of episodes.  It was only a matter of a few minutes before they were snuggling comfortably, him occasionally laughing at her jumping at scary parts even though she'd already seen it.  SD came by to pick something up, and he didn't pull away from her while they were all talking.

It was easy, nice.  Nothing more complicated than that.  He hugged her and didn't try to kiss her goodnight when he left.

Losing All Sense of Home

"So, I'm actually moving in a month." SD dropped the bomb on her for the few minutes they spent together before she had to get back to Goldie's dog.  Goldie herself was moving out of the building next summer.

"Is it weird, coming back here now that you don't live here anymore?" Mel asked when he was over to visit.  "No," she answered, "It still feels like home."

She realized suddenly that soon she would have no reason to go back to her old building.  The place she still considered home.  Though she had a place to stash her crap, it didn't feel like home.  She knew it wasn't going to be forever.

The next day she had a start of a panic attack and didn't know why.  Talking through it with Banana she realized that it was just because it was like moving out of the building all over again, losing her home all over again.  Luckily the sudden knowledge of what she was panicking about stopped the attack, but the sadness of the situation remained.

She was emotionally homeless.

Same Level of Lonely

She had decided, against better judgement, to reconnect with Mel.  She didn't really trust him, but feeling sorry for him sort of over-rode that emotion.  They met for sushi, and she was embarrassed to say that she had completely forgotten his beginning order, save for one roll.  It had only been a few months since they had seen each other, but she guessed it wasn't important enough to her to retain that information.  They did do a fair amount of catching up, and he made fun of her for breaking it off with him and now she had started actually doing edibles.

She apologized about how she was in a bad place and ended it through a text message.  He forgave her, said that it happened, and asked how she was doing now.  Better, she decided.  She was just overwhelmed with emotion and felt like she would never get anything more than what she had with him, that they just weren't meant to be and it was silly to continue to waste each other's time.  Her feelings hadn't changed, but the situation hadn't changed either.

They ended the evening on a good note.

She awoke one morning and started off to an annual autumn event that she had gone to with Mel the year before.  It had been both their first times doing the event last year, and it had been so long since she did a "couple-y" thing that it was thrilling in the moment.

At the last moment she decided it was too hot for what she was wearing and changed into a t-shirt, then realized that it was the shirt Mel had gotten her from the time they went to see his favorite band.  On the way out of town, their song played, from another concert they'd attended.  She decided it was a sign, and brought the spoils of the trip to his workplace that night and explained what happened.

"I was just thinking about you this morning too." He confided.  "Yeah?  What were you thinking about?"  She prodded.

"Just you, and when we went to dinner, and how it was nice to spend time with you." She smiled.  He said she made his "stoner kid heart swell" with the treats she had brought to him.  He was clearly already a bit stoned, but they had a good conversation with the other people he had been talking to, and he said he'd walk her to her car.

They hugged goodbye, and she noticed that he had taken a wider stance, This was something he used to do so that it was easier for them to kiss, and he hugged her longer than usual.  So long in fact that she asked him if he was okay, and he said it had just been awhile since they had hugged.  A look crossed his eyes briefly, then he straightened up and said goodbye.

She was slightly disappointed that he hadn't tried to kiss her, but also very impressed that he didn't.  It was incredibly respectful, while still feeling out the situation.  Even in his incredibly state of stoned he'd managed to still respect her.  It almost made her like him more than she had before.

Facebook Memories

Social Media felt the need to remind her that it had been 2 years since she and her ex had publicly split.  Privately they had been apart for 4 months before that.

Why did it still haunt her every day?  Why did she feel like she'd made a mistake...every day?  Every night before bed, she was painfully reminded that this small bed now belonged to her, and it was not likely anyone would ever join her in it.  She longed for the feeling she had gotten the first time she was with Piz, when even in sleep he had reached out for her.

She and the ex were trying to get back to being friends even though it was still difficult.  One day when they were speaking he said he didn't want to start drama, but Mel had told someone that she had called them a word she didn't use lightly.  She hadn't said it, and her ex believed her, said he knew she wouldn't do something like that.  It was nice that someone still knew her in that way, knew that she was a good person without even having to really check with her.  He said he only brought it up because she deserved to know what was being said behind her back.

Her heart sank as she realized this meant that Mel wasn't keeping his mouth shut about much, and her ex must know about them.  She told him that she had already distanced herself from Mel, and now that action felt vindicated somehow, so it was okay.

She and the ex went to see a bad play together and had a drink afterwards, and it was a really nice time.  She forgot how much she missed having conversations with him.  He almost never looked at his phone throughout the evening, which was very unlike him.  Maybe he was finally growing up a little.  She was happy for him, and hoped that he was feeling better than she was.

One of Many Breaking Points

She hadn't been getting much sleep since her neighbor's had been letting their baby "cry it out" for weeks.  She'd made a joke on social media about calling CPS that had backfired spectacularly.  All her new parent friends didn't see it as a joke and got slightly aggressive.

Her mental health still wasn't where it should have been, and she didn't know why.  She didn't ever know what she was doing differently so she could fix it.

One of KSL's friends was at the apartment having a heart to heart with KSL, and she got a little sucked in, trying to help.

The girl was having a hard time with her living situation, and said to KSL "I wish I had gotten to move in with you.  We are so similar, we are the same level of clean and we like all the same things...it would have been perfect."  She sat on the couch and sobbed into KSL's chest.

"I didn't know you were looking for anything..." KSL answered.  Her logical brain knew he was saying this and meant it, but her emotions told her that in that moment he would have jumped ship if he could.  Her irrational heart told her that she was in the way, again, of someone's happiness.  Why had she been selfish enough to room up with someone when she clearly deserved to be alone forever.  Hell, maybe she should take her mom up on her offer to just buy her a house so that she'd be out of everyone's way.

She knew she needed to go somewhere to be cheered up.  She didn't really have close friends any longer, so she found herself at Mel's bar.  His greeting to her was lacking in any real feelings, and her irrational mind took over once more.  What was she even doing with him besides wasting both of their times?  She felt empty when she was with him now.  They had started this to just have fun and be casual...and it was coming up on a year and it was starting to feel terrible for her.

The next morning she texted him to tell him it was over.  She wanted it all to be over.

BFF Wedding

The day of BFF's wedding had finally come.

She had been dreading it for weeks.  If this wedding had come even a year later, she most likely would not have been invited.  They were in a weird place where BFF most likely thought that she had to invite her, and she thought she had to come.  Neither of them were adult enough to just admit that and not make it awkward for everyone involved.

JJ was supposed to be her date, but he bailed at the last minute, much like he had with being a moving buddy.  KSL had turned his nose up at being a "plus one" and Mel had to work and would have only been able to duck in and out for the ceremony.

She decided to take her mother, which everyone else saw as sweet but she saw as pathetic.  Dealing with the bad driving all the way up the mountain to the wedding site was whiplash worthy, and she relinquished control only when realizing she was going to have to parallel park.

The ceremony was sweet, but she still had this weird feeling that she shouldn't have been there at all.  Just being a regular guest hurt her heart.  She hadn't been asked to help or contribute, but it seems that SD seemed to be running the whole wedding.  They had been friends for a long time, sure, but it started to really sink in as the night wore on that she'd lost her best friend and been invited to the wedding.

Not that BFF's groom was bad, in fact she had come to like him far more than BFF.  She really enjoyed that he was supportive of everyone around him, and had a dark snarky quality that they shared.

Everyone was taking the mic and doing toasts, and she suddenly had the urge to go up there.  She got emotional and knew there was no way she was going to be able to hold it together, so she held off.

Just before she left she approached them and told them she wasn't a people person, so she was going to toast them face to face now.

"When BFF and I first met, it was because she was a mutual friend of someone else's and I needed to check her out because I wanted to make sure she was good enough for him.  Then we met and I told her she wasn't good enough for him.  Then you came along, and I had to check to make sure you were good enough for her.  And you are."

She got choked up, hugged them both, and left without saying goodbye to anyone.

The Search Begins

She was going to have a talk with KSL about a potential roommate situation later.  Until she could meet with him, she went into overdrive looking for one-bedrooms.

Goldie and SD kept sending her links to units in their building.  They were all more money than she was paying, and when she went to see them...they looked their age.  It was a 50 year old building and it was fast becoming apparent that her unit was the most updated.  She secretly thanked her lucky stars that she'd found the only hardwood floor-Ikea-ed out kitchen in the entire building with a dishwasher.

She had let in three different potential investors and given them the grand 20 second tour.  A couple of them had hinted that they might buy the place and let her stay, but she needed to be prepared and couldn't rely on empty promises.

Mel was trying to get her to move into a piece of shit place by herself, tried to convince her that she didn't need things that she found to be essential.  Maybe he was just too young to realize that when you get to be a certain age, you don't have to compromise anymore...at least not about the things that really matter to you.  Mel managed to pressure her with all this while at the same time almost completely disappearing from her life.  Being as they shared the acts of service and quality time love languages, she took this as a complete abandonment and let her heart drift out to sea.

Dishwashers mattered to her.  A washer and dryer in unit would be nice, but she could potentially live without it.  It had to be under a certain amount of money or she wouldn't be able to eat.  She didn't want to live out in the sticks and have a million hour commute.  She could save a bunch of money if she had a roommate.

Her mind screamed no, that it was quite possibly the worst idea in the history of ideas that she become roommates with KSL.  They would kill each other.  It would be volatile, an emotional minefield of awful.

She started writing down concerns, questions about the apartment.  Her mind kept going and she started a new page.  She re-wrote.  Then she heard a few voices in her head of people who had told her she was negative, a defeatist.  She started a new page of positives about having a roommate, having her as a roommate.  She figured that he would know what his good qualities of being a roommate would be.

She was ready to have the talk.  There were a few things on her list that she knew if he didn't agree to, that it couldn't work.  She at least felt more calm now that all her options had been laid out in front of her.

The crying had finally subsided.

Genenna

Genenna- a place or state of misery; hell.

She was avoiding messaging her landlady.  She knew her lease was up at the end of April, and the front desk guard had told her the owners had just been slapped with a huge fee for something silly.

She figured maybe if she waited...she didn't know.  She signed up for a new app that sent her updates of free apartments.

One day she received the text.  Her landlady was going to sell the apartment.  She asked for at least 2 months notice of her having to move out, she acquiesced.

Her mind went into overdrive.  She researched apartments, signed up for alerts...and that night she went out to dinner with Mel.  She apologized for fixating, and he said it was fine.  She mentioned that one possibility, that she didn't want to really think about right now, was that KSL needed a roommate in June.  Mel recalled his days being a roommate with KSL, and advised strongly against it.  She said that with KSL she would at least know what she was getting into, she knew him.

Mel said that he would offer to move with her, but "that's a little too relationship stuff."

Internally she rolled her eyes.  God forbid she was awesome enough to want to have "relationship stuff" with.  She decided to shake it off, since he was the least of her worries at this moment.

Then, days later...she got her two months notice.  She needed to be out by May 15th, and there were three realtors coming by that weekend to look at the apartment.  The tearful phone call came right in the middle of the wrap party for the movie.  She tried to pull it together, but the text messages from the investors came rolling in right after.  She just tried to keep it together as well as possible.  She spoke briefly with KSL over the phone about having a talk about being roommates.  He was going through his own thing and she deliberately tried to keep the emotion out of her voice as she spoke to him.

Mel showed up soon afterward, but he was spooked because an old girlfriend who had once slashed his tires was there.  He said he didn't feel comfortable with her there, and left soon afterward despite the fact that she said she wasn't feeling well and needed a ride home.  He texted with her a little later vaguely threatening that if she moved in with KSL that he wouldn't see her anymore.

Good Riddance.

She got back to the apartment and realized that she was going to be up for hours trying to clean the apartment for the first realtor the next morning.

She got as far as her front hallway and started sobbing.  She was not ready to say goodbye to this space.  She was set free here.  She realized that sex was enjoyable in this space, fell in love, and had so many drunk late nights with friends.  She was not going to see Goldie and SD as often.

What if she had to go back?  What if she ended up having no choice and moving back in with her mom, and her ex who still lived there?  She was suddenly back there, that moment before she moved into her studio and was so desperate to have a different life, to be set free.

She felt as if she was going to lose her freedom again.  It felt terrible.

"This place saved me.  This apartment, you, saved me.  I'm not ready to let go" She tearfully sobbed to Goldie.

She would figured it out eventually....but for the next three days she couldn't stop crying, couldn't stop mourning the potential loss.  And she did it alone.

Valentine's Day

Both she and Mel had to work late on Valentine's day, and he accidentally made reservations for a time when they both were not going to be off work yet. 

As a last minute surprise he got a room at the hotel they had spent time in before, and brought her a large bouquet of white roses.  "I know you kinda think Valentine's Day is stupid, and that you think stuff is stupid...but this is the one day of the year where I have to do it.  I had to get you these, I wanted to."

She kissed him, and they went downstairs to check out what restaurants were still open.  They watched the Olympics at a fake Mexican Cantina and marveled at all the tequila on the walls.  He was trying to take a break from alcohol and she was drinking water in solidarity.

They went back up to the room and debated going to the closing night of a local bar, but then got involved in a late 90's movie on TV while looking for the Olympics.  It was a long movie, and towards the end they ended up fooling around.  She stopped him as he reached for her underwear, and he continued to protest.  She reminded him that he had a very easy task ahead of him, just a small test before she was going to let him go further.

"I'll go on Tuesday."

He'd said that before, so she didn't really pay it any mind.

On Thursday he sent her a text; "I peed in a cup then got stabbed."

She texted "I'm proud of you."

He responded "Now I'm off to Planned Parenthood."

She laughed out loud, then got a little nervous.

Asking Too Much

Mel asked if he could do anything for her, but he was going through his own dramas, so she told him she was fine.

She wasn't.

She was feeling her lowest when she got a text from Nameless, who she hadn't heard from since December.  They easily fell into their old routine, but it was nice to talk to him about things.  She missed having that connection with someone, where there was some flirting but mostly just honest talk.

She expressed her frustration with men and made fun of him for his commitment issues.

"I don't think I'm asking that much of guys.  I'm respecting myself and I think that it's just enough."

He responded "I don't think you are asking too much, just more than most."

It woke her out of her depression.

Year in Review

"Wait, you haven't had sex at all this year?" IL asked her over lunch one day.  She was genuinely shocked.  "With all the boys you had this year?"

She thought about it and realized she did have a dick-filled year for not getting any.  She'd spent the early morning hours of 2017 having tons of sex with KSL.  Things had gotten more serious with Nameless before dropping off.  She'd filed for divorce and in attempting a no-strings attached make out session with JJ and ended up in a sexless relationship with Mel.  There was even that hot moment where she almost agreed to a threesome with JJ and Mel, but ultimately decided she was "too tired."

It's funny that throwing out a tiny stipulation about getting an STD test before having sex will make your actual sex life come to a screeching halt.

But she had started her new job too, which still felt new despite being there a whole year.  Having a whole week off of it had been rejuvenating, but she was ready to get back to the grind of her life.

As she waited for the countdown, she had a mini panic attack.  She was officially getting into "too old" status.  Too old to procreate, even though she wasn't sure she even wanted to.  Too old to seriously get into a relationship.  She was very soon going to be of an age where nothing was appropriate anymore.

She tried to stifle the thoughts, as they just came with spending a New Years Eve alone.  There was something about starting a year alone that was profoundly depressing.  A friend had texted her that the crappier the NYE party, the better the year was.  She guessed this was the year to put that theory to the test.

Happy New Year

Playing Catch Up

It had been one hell of a December.  Before she even realized what was happening, it was the middle of the month and she had been working 15 days straight, and would continue to the end of the month.

Now that she was at the end, everything was a blur.  The end of the last month had been tumultuous between her and KSL, but by the end of December it seemed to have leveled out again.  She sincerely hoped to stay there for awhile.  More and more she felt like she was just running out of friends, even though she still felt like she couldn't really trust him as much as she wanted to.

Being at Goldie's play was difficult because she was literally running over from work, running herself ragged, only to find that the BFF had made sure that other people were doing her job.  BFF made sure she wasn't available to contribute to the director gift from the cast.  One night she didn't even show up, only texting Goldie to give her a head's up.  No one missed her.

It was funny.  BFF was the one who introduced her to the Five Love Languages, and she went out of her way to take away her main love language; Acts of Service.  She felt absolutely helpless.  She recalled a conversation she and KSL had during one of their drives, where she told him she never felt like he needed her for anything.  Nothing to contribute=nothing to love.

She might as well become an actor with how low her self worth was.  Really she was just very, very tired.  She was fast becoming too tired to care.

On a date with Mel, she was trying to get him to open up with her, to confide in her.  They had been dating 6 months, and it had stayed really casual, with bursts of emotional intimacy.  He was a really sweet guy, but she was fast feeling like a burden to him.  She was not used to someone taking her out, paying for drinks and dinner, having dinner dates...but no sex, and no confiding from him.  She, again, felt like she wasn't pulling her weight, wasn't needed by him.

A friend of his died, and she offered to go to the funeral.  He said she didn't need to, and she addressed why he wasn't letting her in.  "I'm a mess...you deserve better than that.  It's a testament to how much I like you that I don't want to be in a serious relationship with you."

It hurt.  It cut through all the numb she was feeling.  On one hand, it was nice that he thought so highly of her that he didn't want to subject her to his shit show.  On the other, it was a rejection.  It hurt.  And the only difference between him and her Ex was that Mel understood what he was doing and wasn't going to take advantage of her kindness.

It still hurt.  How did she keep getting into these faux-lationships?  If he never wanted a serious relationship with her ever...then what were they even doing?  MG said she was doing "relationship" not with a lower case or capital R, but with a cursive R.  At least without the sex part it was easy for her to not get her heart completely broken.  Again.

Float Like a Butterfly...

When she was younger she used to babysit this snobby little girl.  The girl loved to pretend like she knew everything even though she was essential just a little girl.

One day they found a wasp stuck in her bathroom.  "Don't!" She yelled at the girl as she swatted at insect without any thought to her own safety.  She got stung and panicked.

Quickly her adrenaline kicked in.  She checked for a stinger, there wasn't one in her skin.  She put some ice on it and then called her mother.  "She got bit by a bee!" She screamed into the phone.

Her mother came and told her there wasn't any more to be done.  She had done a good job, taken care of the problem.

The child's mother came home soon afterward, and when she was recounting the story, she began to cry.  Sob.  Completely break down in the retelling of the traumatic event.

She felt the same the day after her latest play.  It wasn't the usual ennui or la petite morte she usually had.  It was a traumatic event she had gotten out of by the skin of her teeth.

The director had been mean, to other people and to her.  She had stood up to him, more than she ever needed to stand up to anyone.  It had been one of the most stressful and emotionally draining months of her life.  She felt like she needed to cry.  Sob.  Completely break down.

She was still traumatized by it all.  She couldn't do it.  She still felt like she was still in the situation, like the monster was hiding just around the corner.  Three small bruises on her arm showed his final strike, when he grabbed her and told her she was a "straight shooter" while gifting her with a cannon from the set.  She wasn't even sure it was his to give.

She couldn't relax.  Her entire body was sore, she didn't feel well.  Her body started reacting physically as the day wore on.  She needed to get food but couldn't get away from the bathroom.  Mel brought her food in-between his two jobs.  She told him he was fantastic.

The Take Over, The Breaks Over

She and Mel had an emotional night.  She wasn't sure how they had come upon it, but he had decided before they went any further she deserved to know some dark secrets about him.  They turned out to not be dark so much as unfortunate circumstances he'd been faced with in his past.  He was clearly torn up over them though, but she said that she understood and didn't think any less of him because of it.

They were a little drunk, and she told him that she did like him, and that if he wanted to be exclusive, she would be for him.  He told her that her being with other people took the pressure off him, even though he wasn't seeing anyone else.  "If you ever feel differently let me know, okay?" She asked him.  Mel nodded.

The next day she got a text from Theo.  He was going to ask the other girl to be his girlfriend.  She immediately texted back that she was happy for him, which she was.  Wholeheartedly.  Mel had been there for her when Theo just let her fall to the wayside.  This was the way things should be. 

She told him she felt him pulling away and it was okay, she was glad that he was happy. 

"I wasn't trying to pull away seemed like you got busy honestly but you're too special to me I still want to talk to you and hang out."

Then he said he wasn't going to ask her to be his girlfriend right away, and she knew that he was playing games with her.  He wanted her to say don't do it.  He was being manipulative.  She was even more glad to be rid of him, but still stayed diplomatic.  He did not.  He fucked with her time and kept rescheduling their last date until she told him to forget the whole thing.  Good riddance and good luck to the new girlfriend.  She was sure going to need. it.

The Love Bomb

About a month had passed since she started her polyamor-ish lifestyle.  Seeing two guys had been oddly freeing.  Without the ability to have a Relationship because she was seeing multiple people, her relationships were much more enjoyable.  She didn't worry about fixing either one of them, didn't focus on their flaws.  Never worried about where it was all going.

When Theo texted her that he started seeing someone else, she almost felt relieved. Not being someone's everything really took the pressure off of the relationship.  Because she wanted to be open and honest about everything, she asked him about her.  He refused.  When pressed he said they'd met on Tinder, and  she lived in his apartment complex so it was "convenient" and they were just getting to know each other.  He enjoyed spending time with her.  She got a little worried that he was doing it to try and make her jealous, but she felt the opposite.

She knew that Mel wasn't seeing anyone else.  She was a little worried about that because he seemed to go pretty hard emotionally in his relationships.  However, when they were together he seemed to be playing it pretty cool.

JJ kept telling her that Mel was serious, that all he talked about was her.  She didn't feel that coming from him when they were together.

Her month got busy.  She got stressed with work and taking on too much of the show she was ADing for.  Mel stepped up to the plate, waiting for her after rehearsal to have a drink and decompress for the day.  She didn't have a lot of spare time, but she looked forward to spending time with him.

Because she couldn't hang out in person, Theo started to pull away.  The daily "good morning" and "good night" texts slowed to a stop.  She barely noticed with her schedule, but did make a note that if that was something he did when she was stressed, that was another check mark in the negative column for him.

She couldn't wait to see light at the end of the tunnel of this month.

Back From the Burn

"Sushi date tonight?" came the text from Mel.  He was back earlier than she anticipated, and she was embarrassed to admit she'd missed him.  She wasn't sure if it was going to be weird after so much time together.  Maybe he'd met someone at Burning Man.  Had sex with them.  Was no longer interested in her.

It was possible.

He was waiting to pick her up in the back alley again, leaned up against his second vehicle.  It bumped around like the back wheel was about to fall off at any moment.  She laughed as they went around the corner to hop on the freeway.

They were waiting at a stoplight and the car in front of them suddenly put their car in reverse and back into them.  He got out of the car and yelled a little too loudly and the lady who was clearly not from the country.  She had a strong accent and didn't seem to understand what the problem was.  It was a weird interaction but eventually they were back on their way and he seemed to cheer up.

He was full of Burning Man stories, from this year and year's past.  He seemed tired but happy. Everything felt like it was on the right track again with them, and she smiled at him over wasabi and other amazing and spicy fish.

They were too tired to see a movie, again.  It didn't matter, they were both okay with how much time they'd spent together.  He was still decompressing and tired, and she forgave him.  The kiss was still just as passionate as the first time, and she looked forward to the future.

Goodbye Breakfast Dates

Mel didn't want to leave for 10 days not seeing her, so he asked to take her to breakfast the morning before he left.

He'd worked a graveyard shift and was blurry eyed when he texted that he was at the base of her building.  His sunglasses covered half his face, and he was leaning casually against the side of his car.

He apologized for the traffic that had made him late, and she leaned into him and reached up for a kiss.  It was sweet and playful, and any anger he might have had towards the traffic melted away.

The conversation was fun and easy as always.  She was always worried they were a few sentences away from not having anything to say to each other anymore, but something interesting always came up.  She would always laugh and tell him when he did something stupid, but how cute he was.

She realized he had never taken any of her quizzes and how crazy that seemed.  She made a mental note to have him take it when he got back.

He pulled up across the street from her work and parked the car.  He sweetly reached for her and kissed her gently, then more intensely.  It floored her how sexually charged they were when she hadn't given him a second thought a couple of months ago.  She told him to have an amazing time.

She sent him a message that she was already missing him.  He sent back "Awwwww, I'm gonna miss you too."