A Flame From The Past

55: New Years

He was gone before I had left, he was gone and he never came back, I mean he was the fully sober one. Any choice he made seemed logical. It wasn't a good idea for him and I, after all of this time.

That morning I slipped out of his bed, looking around for him, but he was nowhere to be seen so I pulled a pad of paper out of my stack and wrote him a little note, adding "text me if you need anything" then I tried erasing it. Considering anything was a stretch.

I may have also written that it would be best if we didn't see each other for a while, to give each other a much needed break. And I apologized over and over again. And I can't remember through the tears, but I may have told him to go on a date. Find someone, that wasn't me.

And to this day, three days later I was still thinking about it, his tenderness, his touch, his smile, his teasing, his allure of a happy devil.

I should've known better, I should've known better than to mess with him, he had a game coming up and I knew he put so much pressure on himself to do well. I hated toying with his mind, and I knew it was me, it was me that was messing him up, it was me messing up myself as well.

I was messing us both up, with the issue of me becoming severely drunk, so drunk I can't even forget the embarrassing things I did while drunk, I mean I was drunk it should be blurred out, but no I remember every word I said to him over that hushed phone call and I remember what I took home with me that day.

He was perfect, like an angelic monster and I felt bad staring at the pictures he had slipped me, him entirely naked. Not afraid of anything as he handed me to them, knowing exactly why I wanted them.

I hate drunk me, absolutely hate it considering I was a mess already that night, alcohol only made it worse, made me worse.

I had one day before I went back to work, I had tonight then tomorrow I would be preparing my goodie bags and the next day after that I would be welcoming in my favorite students through the gym door and into the new year. Today was New Year's Eve, a strikingly fast day. And I planned to stay home and the only kiss I would be giving would be on the cheek to the only man in my life. Ray was back from Mariam's sitting on the couch as he watched the game.

The infamous game, where according to Ray, Luca was "sucking", which is a very low insult on the scale of Ray and Luca. Even I could tell he was distracted and I hoped it had nothing to do with the note I left.

"Look at him... this is a mess". Ray said, groaning at the TV, like his life was over. He was distracting me from all the work that I still needed to do. I would run to my room, but he liked having someone out here with him, and Ally had already left for the night. She went out with Layla for New Years, and she didn't even beg me to come out with her when I declined. I assumed they were going over to the also infamous party Luca threw for New Years.

He didn't like celebrating Christmas, but god did he love New Years. I used to read about the aftermath of these parties while I waited at the gynecologist's office. I had all the time in the world to hear about how someone drank way too much and howled outside of the building, or went streaking outside, or even hurled in the elevator.

And after according to Ray, Luca was going to need to party hard to forget this massive amount of a mess he created in this game. The sports announcers were calling it "the worst game of his season" and I hated that this could be because of me. I knew he had a week off from football after this game, and that he would have time to be better, but it worried me that he wasn't focused. He always remained tight, loose with the ball was not his thing.

He came back in the third quarter and in the fourth quarter, the team had secured a win. But he looked angry as the buzzer rang and he tore his helmet off, dodging reporters as one stopped him. His coach tapped him on the back and he knew he had to do an interview even if he did want to, he hated these interviews. I could see it on his face as he looked like he wanted to bash something in.