We end up not talking when I get to his house.  I’m closed up, tightly wound, and rigid.  I ask to see the latest pottery that his sister has created.  Her newest thing:  totem poles.  She fashions tubes of clay that resemble long, overgrown napkin rings.  Each one has a face or a saying or even a single word. They are each glazed a different color, some look metallic.  I read the words:  love, joy, dream.  Her wishes for him.  The tubes are stacked on a copper pipe that he’s driven into the earth.  The copper is significant.  It allows the wishes and wants to flow to the earth.  

I murmur about how lovely the glazes are, glistening in the sun, but refrain from commenting on the significance they’ll given the pipe.  If that’s their belief then I’ll not disturb it with questions or comment.  

When we go back inside I ask about his brother-in-law’s brain tumor.  He had sounded all broken up over it when we spoke on the phone.  He licked his lips and rubbed his hands together, then turned to busy himself with wiping the kitchen counter.  ”It’s just under the skull, and sort of towards the back of the head,” he pointed to the corresponding spot on his own big head.  I asked if it was encapsulated or was it star shaped.  His eyes widened, “Oh.  It’s just round.  About the size of an olive.”  Before I could ask if his brother-in-law was having symptoms he blurted, “The doctor said it’s fine and R doesn’t need surgery unless it starts causing problems.”  I looked at him surprised, “Oh.”  That was the end of the story.  Apparently that wasn’t what had him all tied up in knots.

I talked him into showing me the photos from the motorcycle trip, and he wasn’t at all happy to show me them.  Growling, he assured me that I’d find something to pick apart in them.  I coldly replied, “If you have something to hide, then don’t show them to me.  I really don’t give a fuck.”  I started to get up, and he muttered that he wasn’t good with the camera, and opened the file.  I don’t know what he was worried about, unless he honestly didn’t remember what he’d photographed, because there was nothing objectionable there.  A couple attempts at art shots in the airport at La Guardia.  One of a young Asian woman dressed from head to toe in black and white, unsmiling and plain, the condiments on the table.  The iPads that were everywhere.  The rest were of the group.  The girls were all trying to look like bad-ass biker chicks, but we’re all too old to pull that look off.  Mostly, they looked like soft, older women who hid mom jeans under their fringed vests.  Most of them had put on a lot of weight in the past few months.  I didn’t comment on their appearances.  I’ve noticed that my clothes were getting tight, too.  We’re all getting to that age.  

Of course, Angel me whispered, “Time to start eating ‘clean’.  You don’t want to look like that.”

The next photo was a shot of the girls lined up with the mountain range in the back.  He had teased that the scenery was nice when he posted that photo on the social networking site – clearly complimenting the girls on their rear-ends.  The girls were delighted, of course.  I commented on the mountain range, stating that it must have been breathtaking to see.  It was.  I didn’t comment on the line of wide rear ends.  He looked at me, studying my face to see if I was hiding something, but I wasn’t offering anything.  He clicked through the rest.  M with some old guy’s Newfoundland dog.  She adopts dogs and cats regularly, and also has chickens and ducks.  She’s J’s girlfriend, the one he was itching to leave and I told him to stay with her.  She supported him until B gave him a job.  Now they live together.  She’s quiet and leads J around by the dick but he’s happy enough that he never goes out anymore.  She’s become defensive of D as well.  I posted a meme after I got off the phone with someone who wondered if I should get back with H since he was having trouble financially (WTF?  I divorced his abusive butt).  It was about getting back with an ex making as much sense as going to a yard sale and buying back your old shit.  She thumped me.  Another friend thumped her back.  I ended up explaining, and feeling weird about it.

But mostly the weird was the realization that he DOES talk about me to them.  All of that was running through my mind while he flipped through the photos explaining them all.  The truth:  the cabin, the scenery and the town are absolutely lovely and quaint.  I commented that Lake Sunapee would have looked like a postcard had the sky been clear.  This was no Daytona.  It was just a quaint little place with a nice bike fest.  There were photos of them sitting at long tables in restaurants that weren’t all that crowded.  That’s when I noticed how heavy J had become and I blurted out, “He’s put on a lot of weight since I saw him last!”  I saved myself by commenting that M was a great cook.  Or maybe I didn’t save myself.  I didn’t care about that either.  They all had plates piled with ribs, potatoes, steaks in front of them.  No one was dieting, and everyone was eating like tomorrow may not arrive.  I didn’t comment on that – because it really grossed me out.  I wondered if that was part of his issue with me, that I don’t eat like a pig, and that he’d not be comfortable eating half a chicken, a rack of ribs, and a pound of buttered potatoes in front of me.  He is self conscious. 

He finished scrolling through the photos, a little exasperated.  Maybe he’d thought the Asian chick was hot, or maybe he was worried that I thought he was interested in her.  I mentally threw my hands up for I could see nothing questionable.  Except for the dinner and lunch spreads that I didn’t comment on.  

I sat down with him to watch a movie, but I kept my distance.  He finally told me to sit closer, “Touch me, dammit.  I’ve been so lonely because I haven’t seen you, and I need to feel you.  I love you.  I need your touch.”  I moved closer and he pulled me close.  Like kryptonite….I did miss him.

Dammit.

I rested my head against his chest and listened to his heart pounding against his ribs – too fast.  Was it fear because he was wondering if I was leaving or was it a response to a lie?  The lie, of course, being that he loved me.  I wasn’t sure so I let my head stay on his chest for long minutes, and his heart galloped like a horse running from a burning barn.  I gave him a squeeze, and he kissed the top of my head.  The horse who lived in his heart galloped on.  The touch loosened his tongue, and he began to talk about this trip.  C was selfish – treating his girlfriend like a doormat, and that silly girl co-signed on a new Harley Davidson for C (even though he’ll likely have dumped her by December).  K and K were obnoxious.  M was quiet.  L and S were better behaved than he expected (they had acted like fools at the wedding).  W was a nice guy, but his wife was drunk and unhappy.  A and B paid for everything.  They stayed in B’s house.  B didn’t bring his wife, but he concerned himself with making sure everyone had fun.  

Then he sang about the wedding.  JD had brought hot pink duct tape.  To a wedding?  JD is a professional photographer.  I looked at D, puzzled.  He continued.  S and L were wasted; in fact, S was so wasted that he hollered drunkenly throughout the toast.  I shuddered.  So much for honoring the bride.  Then again, the bride was K.  The duct tape came out, and they taped C to a pole.  D was talking to B and his wife.  They looked on – stunned – when the bride dropped to her knees in her wedding gown and pantomimed oral sex on C.  My jaw hit the floor, “She pretended to suck C off at the reception?  What a proud moment for her new husband.”  D nodded, “I was embarrassed for him, but he had to know what he was getting into.”  I shook my head, “And in front of her kids and his…she’s a class act.  Jesus.  And B and his wife let them stay at the cabin after THAT?  They’re saints.  I wouldn’t have let that pig stay at my place.”  D admitted that he hadn’t even thought of K’s 11 year old daughter or her new husband’s 12 and 10 year old sons.  He said that J thought B’s wife was a bitch for telling K and K not to break anything.  D disagreed.  

I didn’t remind him that these animals were his best of times, best biker buddies.  I’m sure they acted like pigs at the cabin.  He offered that C’s girlfriend was a doormat, but nice enough.  She looked hard and tired in the photos, but D said that C behaved.  He wouldn’t have if she hadn’t been there.  I thought about him in Leesburg.  He picked up a strange girl and she stayed with him all weekend, even though he had a girl at home.  Had.  K and K were still on their honeymoon.  J confided that S and L live together but don’t have sex.  Strange topics between these friends.  I wondered what he’d told them about me.  None of them seem to be talking to me all that much.  I throw caution to the wind and lay that on D.  He didn’t hear anything negative said about me.  Then again, as if he’d tell me if he had.  I cut the gossip flow off before I slipped and reminded him that his new friends had about as much class as the fair weathers.

I left then, and I didn’t break it off, but we didn’t talk about us either.

But next week we will talk.  We need to talk about the trip we took.  I need to tell him that I don’t think I want to be with someone who is never going to be available.  I don’t want to resign myself to the fact that I’ll never take a romantic vacation with him ever again.  Someday I’ll want to travel someplace with a man I love.  He doesn’t want that.  Indeed, he didn’t even try to lie and say that he’d have loved to have gone to NH with me.  It hurt, but I was relieved that he hadn’t lied.  He’ll travel without me.  I’ll be expected to travel alone.  

He won’t be alone, though. There are too many fair weather friends.

I need to tell him that it’s lonely for me all the time, that it hurts to be excluded, but I know I don’t fit.  I don’t care that I don’t fit.  Sometimes when you’ve been on the outside looking in, you realize that you don’t want to be inside.  On the outside, I can slip away silent and disappear into the shadows.  That’s not a bad thing.  He’d rather be with his friends anyway.  I think I’m only in his life for one reason, and that is just for those times he needs to be intimate.    

 And I need to find someone who loves me.

I responded honestly to his email.  I’m sick.  I’m returning to the clinic for more medications.  I’ll call the urologist on Monday.  I tell him that maybe we can see each other sometime on Saturday.  Then I slip away. 

When I check in to the social networking site later, to let my friends know that I’m not inflicted with plague or something dire, he’s on it like a duck on a June bug.  Unloading the fishing trip with his brother-in-law, such a failure that they stop by the fish market and buy fish to grill.  There’s newly dredged concern – DEEP CONCERN – for my sinuses, lungs and my right kidney.  Apparently, this has to do with me being his GIRLFRIEND.  I snort laughter, then cough up phlegm.  Girlfriend indeed!

I cock an eyebrow at the screen and tell him about my nasal spray and antibiotic, “I’m also supposed to take Mucinex for the cement-like snot I’m producing in generous amounts.”

He outlines his entire workweek schedule, then offers to take me on the motorcycle.  I shudder and type that we should check the weather.  It’s a weak shot to be certain, but he needn’t know my real plans.  I’m spending the day with my sons, then I’ll stop over to see the photos and let him go on about his trip.  I’ll break up with him, go celebrate with a drink at Bru’s.  He can drive that motorcycle up his ass for all I care.

If I have to be lonely, at least I won’t be tied to someone and be lonely.

He comes back with alternate plans – he’ll take me to the movies or bowling if it’s raining.  No, I say to myself, you won’t be taking me anywhere anymore.  I abruptly log off without a word because I really don’t want to talk to him.  I’m tired of being a second or third thought.  I’ll avoid checking in for most of the week.  I on call for 2 days, so it will be easy to stay scarce.

Sometimes, it all feels mean, but I remind myself that he’s not been kind to me.  Besides, I’m not attacking him or cutting him down, not to his face or in public.  I’m just leaving because I’m not getting my needs met and he’s never around.  One vacation in years – and it’s ruined because he is upset that I got a kidney stone.  He was nasty to me then, and that still bothers me.  I really don’t need that shit.  The breakup itself should be a relief to him.  He’s happier with everyone else anyway.  Why should he stay with me if he doesn’t want to be around me or if I make him unhappy?  That’s ridiculous.  I traveled that path with H and it was hell.  I have no desire to revisit that trail.

The pain spread across my back, gnawing at me.  I assumed it was fatigue from working back to back 12-hour shifts, and call.  I looked at my workshoes, the soles were showing a little wear, but the toes were scuffed and worn.  Could it be a matter of needing a new pair of shoes?  I wondered when I bought them.  They had to be at least a year old.  Still.  I commented to a colleague that my back pain was worsening.  I held my right flank.  The pain became colicky, and it dawned on me that this wasn’t a case of back pain.

Another kidney stone.

I didn’t leave work, but I did park my ass at the desk.  I toyed with the idea of heading to the emergency department, but ended up staying.  I became very tired.  V gave me a pained look when he asked me to set up the case I had just booked.  I scrubbed in and set up the back table for N.  We ended up opening three trays in search of the instrument the doctor needed.  I shook my head at N.  P scolded us for opening so many trays, but we argued that trays that were missing necessary instruments needed to be put right.

When I left, I picked my way gingerly through the tunnel.  There have been plenty of disturbingly large dead cockroaches littering the concrete floor since the rains arrived.  Tonight I see a live one, so big that I can see him drinking water that’s leaked from a condensate return pipe. He’s glossy and fat, and I walk carefully by him.  He doesn’t run.  I ease myself into my car, and drive away, wincing at every bump in the road.  

D was out with the fair weathers, at a filthy little spiderhole of a bar in the worst part of town.  Two of the guys from a local band he follows are “celebrity bartending”, only it isn’t really a proper bar, and they aren’t celebrities.  They’re trying to raise money so that one of their members can get a plane ticket to Tennessee where he has the chance to be a studio musician for a slightly better known band there.  These are all guys in their 30s, so it baffles me why they couldn’t just pass the hat and raise the funds.  Of course, the fair weathers are a notoriously cheap bunch, so that may explain something. I listened to one of their covers on youTube.  It had about 40 views, and the guitarist was pretty good.  I guess he’s the one who is heading to Tennessee.  

D had returned from the motorcycle trip, and put me off again because his sister and brother-in-law were visiting.  I shrugged.  Breaking up with him could certainly wait.  I wondered if he had visitors at all, but it didn’t matter.  I logged long days at work, contracted strep throat, and stayed in.  It got weird with J.  He stopped speaking to me.  I wasn’t certain what that was about, but I didn’t give it much thought at the time.

Then it dawned on me.  None of the people who went on the motorcycle trip were all that warm and fuzzy anymore.  My first thought, had I SAID or DONE something to cause an entire group to pull away?  I tried to remember when they had last been friendly, and realized that was BEFORE the wedding.  I searched through prior posts and status updates, notes and replies.  I couldn’t find anything amiss.  It occurred to me that D had been busy bad-mouthing me.  He’d probably been doing it for a long time.

The loneliness, the constant exclusion, the abandonment….had all left me feeling sad and like the odd man out.  It had hurt to see the photos of them all having a grand time in a beautiful place.  I searched my heart to find the reason, but Angel me interrupted, “You felt left out because he had mentioned on numerous occasions that he wouldn’t enjoy a trip like that unless you were with him.  It was another lie, but you believed him.  Now, that he did go at the 11th hour and had a grand time, you see the truth.  He didn’t want you there at all.”  It was the lies that hurt the most.  There were so many lies.

He sent me a note telling me that he wished he was squeezing me.  I changed the subject, and talked about something else.  

I rehearsed my break up speech every day.  I made it a point to stay away.  When plans changed on Saturday, I didn’t call him to let him know that things had fallen through.  Instead, I made new plans.  I didn’t even check in with him.  

I’m breaking up with the asshole, after all.  That can wait until next weekend.

As for the others, I spent a little time looking in at them, but I found that I was happy to be on the outside.  I didn’t have to be on the inside, part of their group.  I wouldn’t lose anything by losing them.  People change.  Maybe I’ve changed.  

He already said that he’d never take me on a trip ever again, in fact, he hadn’t wanted to take me to on vacation in April (even though the whole thing was his idea).  I can’t really get excited about seeing the hundreds of photos he took of a place I’ll never travel to with him or anyone else.  I don’t want to have dinner with him or chat over a cocktail.  I certainly don’t want to have sex with him.  Why have sex with someone who only gives it up once or twice a month?  

I want to find someone who wants me around.  I want someone who wants to hold my hand in public, and steal kisses in the alley.  I want someone who plays footsies under the table no matter if he’s paying the tab.  I want someone who holds my face when he kisses me.  I want someone who wants to travel with me, who wants to introduce me to his friends, who wants to meet my friends.  I want someone who can’t help but to want me inside his heart because he loves me.  I want someone who remembers my birthday and who makes plans to celebrate it with me.  I want someone who makes me the priority sometimes, not always, but sometimes.  

There are too many rules with D.  He can’t take me around his friends or ours.  He can’t tell me the truth about anywhere he goes.  He always leaves me behind to go with the fair weathers, to go on vacations, to go hang out with friends.  I’m never welcome.  He’s only good to me on his terms, under his roof…when we are alone.  

I don’t think it will be hard to walk away this time.  I really need to walk away for good.  

He’ll never miss me.

He shoots me a text.  The weather has cleared and they’re going to the rally.  He’ll be back on Sunday at 11:30 pm.  Too late to expect me to show up.

Thank fucking God.

I’m laid up with strep throat, as are the kids.  I nap a great deal and try to find things to soothe my throat.  I’m in agony.  The antibiotics don’t seem to work for me.  If I’m not better later, then back to the walk in clinic I go.

I take a few hours and write in longhand.  It’s a note to D.  I’m breaking it off.  Angel me and Devil me say nothing, even as I hand the note to them in turn to read.  Maybe they don’t believe I’ll hand it to him, but I will.  I won’t see him until next weekend.  I can’t imagine that he’ll contact me this week.  I won’t have the kids next weekend.  They should go to their father on Thursday.  He’ll have them through Father’s Day.

I play it through in my head.  I’ll go to D’s.  He’ll tell me about the motorcycle trip, show me photos maybe.  I’ll nod and act amazed by his wonderful adventure, then I’ll hand over the letter. 

I can’t mail it.  The damned thing is 9 pages long.  Admittedly, it got out of hand, but my heart is at peace.  He’ll not have a reply.  I’ll leave, and never return.

Maybe I’ll leave here, too.

I released J from any obligations from our childhood.  I’m releasing them all.  Walking away from them all, which is something I should have done years ago.  When it felt right, and before the spider web of connections and invisible obligations caught me in it’s grip.  I waited too long.  Over 80 followers and friends I’ve never met send messages when I grumble that I’ll go.  My friends in CA also contact me immediately, telling me not to go. 

I run away and hide here.  It doesn’t feel any safer here.  I pull up Stone Temple Pilots “Big Empty”.  It fits me tonight.  My sore throat makes it difficult to stay on key, but I try. 

But mostly….I need to find a place to be me.

I don’t get a chance to wish D safe travels before his trip.  I forgot my phone at home, which leaves me feeling oddly peaceful.  I leave it sit when I get home, because I’m tired.  I’ve worked two hours past the end of my shift to help a surgeon with a complicated surgery on a critically ill child.  He’s in over his head, and I know that a change in the sterile team would likely stress him further.  I’ve known him for over two decades, so I’m familiar and calming.  The surgery took 6 hours.

At midnight the text comes in.  Their flight was delayed so they had to fly into Boston.  Their hour and a half ride to the cabin would end up taking two and a half hours.  They had to rent a van – added unexpected expense.  I snort in disgust and text a short message that we’re getting rain from a tropical storm that’s hitting the west coast on Thursday sometime. 

I don’t add that it’s headed his way, and should arrive just in time to affect their weather adversely by Friday.  The rally and the zip line excursion would be a rainy ones, and any bar hopping would be pretty treacherous.  I keep it all to myself.  I tell him that I’m glad they arrived safe, and that I hoped they had a good time.  I apologize for not contacting him sooner and explain the reasons why. 

He beams that he’s proud of me, which never fails to amaze me.  It just rings so false.  I have to trust my gut on this.  He’s putting on a show for the people he’s traveling with. 

Suddenly afraid that he’s going to accuse me of bragging I minimize the sacrifice, my experience.  Angel me winces.  “Why do you do that?” she hisses. 
I look at her with sadness in my eyes, “It doesn’t matter.”

It does matter.

He doesn’t respond back. 

In the early hours, tornadoes and severe weather hit the area I live in like a bolt out of the blue.  A house collapses on an elderly woman, shattering her legs.  She comes in through Trauma Service, and when I look at her chart I realize that she lives a few roads away from me.  Trees have fallen across roads, power poles have snapped…the water begins to rise in my yard.

I text that news to J, and ask if I need to check his girlfriend’s house.  Then, afraid he’ll mention it to D, I tell that news to D, who expresses concern that I’ll be flooded. 

He asks if I’m stranded at home.  Devil me grins, and I smile back.  “He’s hoping you won’t go out partying while he’s vacationing,” she giggles.  I realize that the message I shot to J while he was trailering the motorcycles north- the one where I confessed that D was leaving me alone again, and that I was lonely – has been shared.  J isn’t someone I can confide things to anymore.  His loyalty now lies with D. 

That bothers me a bit, but I remind myself that it’s all close to being over.  It still hurts losing someone who was part of my childhood, but I won’t ask about it. 

C has found free digs in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Another bike trip is being planned.  I won’t be attending because I won’t be invited.  I look at Angel me, and she pats my arm, “You need to move on.  Tell him why, but move on for good this time.”

What do I say?  She looks at me sadly and says, “Tell him that you love him but you need someone who isn’t always leaving you behind to go on another fabulous vacation or to play with friends…Tell him that you realize that he can’t travel with you – that you don’t want to repeat the disaster of the Keys – that you can’t travel with someone who will abandon you hundreds of miles from home with no way back.  Tell him that you need to find someone who wants to spend time with you, who you can travel with, who….really loves you, and who doesn’t lie about things like that.  Tell him that you’re unhappy….”

“Tell him that you don’t expect him to change, but that you can’t stay with someone who is never around.  Tell him that you’re lonely, and that you need to be intimate more than a day or two a month…”  I nod.

When he sends me a photo of himself, alone.  I lose my resolve for a moment.  Later, L posts photos of the women on the trip – the wives and steadies – and I look at them blankly.  K’s wife acts sleazy and makes sure that she grabs her boobs a lot.  The rest of them sport leather, mom jeans, and do rags.  They all look hard.  L often goes bra-less, which isn’t the best choice for a woman so heavy and so close to 50.  There’s another guy, A, who just kind of materialized at the cabin.  There’s an even 14.  D hides behind everyone when photos are taken.  He’s sensitive about his weight.

I had asked J to send me video and photo of the zip line participants.  D was going to take the plunge, and I wanted to enjoy the sight of his vast behind roaring though the trees.  I planned on dubbing sound effects over it – prolonged fart, sonic boom, a woman screaming….just for my own pleasure.  I won’t see them.  He’s D’s friend now. 

Lost opportunity.

But I’m even more certain that I wouldn’t have enjoyed being there. 

He comes back on Sunday.  It will be easy to give him the brush off.  I’ll tell him that I understand that he’s got laundry to do, food shopping.  He’ll be tired.  I’ll have things to get in order before the new week.  I can beg off for dental appointments on Tuesday, a mandatory ethics conference on Thursday.  When the weekend rolls around again, I’ll be brave enough to tell him that we’re not working out. 

He’ll probably be happy about that.  He’ll have all the time in the world to do what he wants.  Besides, I’m sure he’s not missing me at all.

It’s my fault, really it is.  I allowed myself to be drawn back in.  He’s much more attentive. 

I don’t hide my feelings or my wariness.  I don’t smile as often.  I turn away a lot.  I keep my voice even, but I allow my body language to speak volumes.

The new me is a skittish lioness, pacing the room, ready to escape.  Often, I find myself not responding to his sweet talk and bullshit, so he redoubles his efforts until the room is filled with fluff and lies and me pacing, tense.

He’s learned not to respond to sensitive questions in the email box.  Instead he breaks the news to me in his kitchen after begging me to come over.  He’ll be the 13th wheel on the motorcycle trip.  The other 12 are couples – married or steadies.  He explains that it all fell into place after the wedding he attended (without me).  He’s obviously afraid that I’ll blow up at him, because we had tenuous plans.  He explains quickly.  He shows me the new camera he purchased.  He shovels it out, deep. 

I turn away, “That’s nice,” my voice is cold and flat, “That sounds like a nice trip.”  I walk away while he blusters and digs a deeper hole.  I don’t hide my disappointment, and I walk out to the back porch to stare at the sky.  He follows, chattering nonstop.  I shake my head, and walk back into the house.  I head for the bathroom and gently close the door in his face.

In spite of myself, I have tears in my eyes.  I lock the door.  He chatters from the other side while I wipe silent tears. 

Angel me whispers, “Why are you crying?  You knew he’d find a way to go.  You knew that any plans you had meant nothing.”  Of course, I knew, but it still hurts for some reason.  I can’t seem to put my finger on it.

“You’re being left behind.  Again,” she cups a hand round my ear.  I dab at my reddened eyes, toss the tissue in the trash, and exit.  He’s been standing outside the door the whole time.  He’s going on and on about who will be there, explaining that he doesn’t know half of them.  I know most of them.  Half the crowd are people who I’d not enjoy spending 5 days with – because they are obnoxious drunks, or in the case of the cop’s bride – too enamored with their dominatrix lifestyle to have an iota of class (although I’m sure the whole dominatrix thing has nothing to do with that….she’d be obnoxious if she were a quiet librarian).  Then again, he’s used to obnoxious drunks thanks to the fair weathers.

I shake my head.  Then I tune him out so completely that when he asks me a question I don’t respond, and he has to repeat it three times.  I stop crying but I don’t smile for the rest of the evening.  I’m silent, because there is nothing to say.  He tells me that he’ll leave on Wednesday night at 6pm and that they’ll arrive in the airport late, “Then it’s an hour and a half ride to the cabin.”  I nod.  He goes on to say that if he had planned the trip then they would be gone for a week.  I roll my eyes.  He shakes his head, “There won’t be much time for anything because we’ll only have Thursday through Saturday.  We come back early Sunday.  You’ll hardly know I’ve been gone.”  He smiles broadly, and I walk away, eying my shoes, wondering if I should just leave before dinner.  I don’t have an appetite anymore.  He floors me by adding, “You are my girlfriend, right?  You know that they all know about you.”

My head snaps up, and my eyes spark fire, “They shouldn’t!  I wouldn’t have told them that!  I would NEVER tell them that!”  It’s his turn to look upset, “I might have told them.”  He spends the next couple hours telling me that I’m beautiful and gorgeous.  I wonder if I will puke.

I end up staying because it storms, but the date slides – predictably – into the disaster I’ve come to expect.  I end up sick for 2 days.

Conversation between he an I slips into barely polite territory.  Devil me snorts in disgust, “These friends must be idiots.”  I smile ruefully, “Some of them aren’t the brightest, I’ll admit.”  She tosses her hair, and studies me with icy eyes, “They don’t question a girlfriend who he NEVER brings around?”  My eyebrows shoot skyward and I chuckle in spite of myself, “That certainly IS pretty stupid.” 

“Do you want to go?” Angel me asks.  I shake my head, “Not with them.  They are going to be a handful in the bar, and out of control in the cabin.  B has to have the heart of a Saint to let that motley crew in his vacation home.”  I laugh a little, “D will have plenty to bitch about when he gets home, but I think I’ll be busy and stand him up so I don’t have to listen to it.” 

Devil me puts a hand on my arm, “Really, honey, what are you going to do?”

I look at Devil me, “He’s never really there for me.”  She nods.  I continue, “I’m lonely.  I want to find someone who wants to spend time with me, not ditch me every 5 minutes for something better.  I have a service project to do with the Troop on Saturday, so I’ll do that because it will make me feel better, but later I think I’ll go out and cast my net on the stars.  Maybe it’s time to join a real dating site.  I don’t know.  I’m not even sure I want to talk to him.”

J and M left tonight to trailer the motorcycles up.  I asked J to text me sometime over the weekend.  Angel me looks puzzled, so I explain, “I want to know what they get to do, but I don’t want to talk to D, if that makes sense.  I don’t want him to think I’m pining for him, because I won’t be.  With any luck I’ll be sitting at the bar, laughing with friends or strangers, stealing a kiss in the parking lot.” 

Then I realize that I’m crying again, because I’ve wasted so much time, because I’ve been taken for a ride, because I need to run far away.