The Deep End ✔️

7 - bad idea, right?

Now I was too conflicted to even think.

I couldn't hate him, I never would. Maybe I didn't love him anymore. Or I did. Can you just stop loving someone? I just didn't know. How can you not fall in love with him? His every move fucked up my brain, his words sliced novels into my skin, his eyes tucked me in at night. No matter what he did to me, he would have me.

"It doesn't matter anymore," I said numbly.

"Of course it does."

"No, Dallas, it doesn't. Sure, yay me, I now know why I checked my phone every second for three months, waiting for your call," I said with grave irritation, the sarcasm dripping from my lips, "but it doesn't fucking matter now, because you've got Shelby and I'm assuming you still live in Florida."

He paused. "Actually, I moved back last year. I live about twenty minutes from you."

What?

"You finished your internship?" I asked, my voice having lost all its confidence, coming out a bit silkier and quieter.

"I finished law school," Dallas said.

My jaw dropped, but I recoiled quickly. "Wow, that's really great," I said, looking into his eyes. I hesitated, not wanting to say the next part. "I'm happy for you."

Dallas cocked his head to the side and I felt like he saw right through me. Like he knew I wasn't completely happy for him. But I was! I was happy for him that he was doing so much better than me. He had a beautiful girlfriend, finished fucking law school, moved back home, starting attending holiday festivities. I was happy for him.

It hurts, though.

I think as humans we develop unrealistic, selfish fantasies that only set us up for disappointment. I knew, realistically, that Dallas and I wouldn't work out together. That's why I ended it in the first place. But the idealist in me? I thought we'd find our way back. I thought, maybe in the back most part of my periphery, that he'd come back to New York and seek me out and we'd be happy.

But I was more of a realist in the end.

"Thomas, you have to know I never for a second stopped thinking about you."

I felt my lungs officially collapse in my chest, the scratchy moths with their poison antennae in battle formation. Dallas was looking at me, his head ducked forward a bit, way too close. I glanced at his lips and was scalded with terrible thoughts.

Dallas felt it, too.

I could tell. I was all too familiar with the look in his eyes when he wanted to kiss me. The blue seemed almost deeper, his pupils shallow. His eyelids would droop ever so, slight enough that anyone else would miss it.

"Don't do something you'll regret," I said in a passing breath.

His jaw clenched, his hand on the bed curling into a fist. I glanced down at it, then back up to his face and his expression softened. Dallas straightened his back and leaned away from me once again. I relaxed back against the wall and watched him stand up. I expected him to straighten his jacket and say goodbye. But instead he just returned to the desk chair and poured himself another glass of wine.

"Do you see a point to this?" I asked and he looked at me as if to say, What? "Coming here and talking about the past . . . Is it going to change a damn thing?"

His lips pouted prettily and I handed him my empty glass.

"I guess there's not much of a point. I just really wanted to see you again," Dallas admitted and I watched his cheeks tinge pink while he poured my wine. Handing me the glass, he said, "I say we get wine drunk and catch up. Just one last hoorah."