Absence of Evidence

I don't enjoy lounges. I mean, I will go, but I don't like to. So when I got that late-night, free drinks invite from Jinx, I said absolutely. I was glad it was free. Not because I was broke or anything, I just didn't have any extra money. Two different things.

I don't have a fancy car, just an Altima. An Altima that I parked at the top of the street not too far from the lounge. I decided to take my license and debit card rather than lug around a purse. My fingertips felt oddly dirty as I closed the trunk of my car. The cool thing is that I can dance freely without the weight and don't have to ask anyone to watch my stuff. I mean, honestly, it's nothing there to steal. I don't get paid until Friday.

I checked myself out in my car window reflection. I wore vintage high waist cuffed Levi's and a tube top with chunky sandals—all thrifted, ofcourse. I recently got my locs washed and retwisted. They are really long now, and I love how they feel swinging along my waist. All set. I wasn't quite sure how to dress for this particular lounge because although there is music and drinks, the point of it is to sit down. I'm an overthinker, but I won't overthink it. I'm definitely overthinking it. How do I think less? Ugh. As soon as I walked in, I noticed how crappy and small the place was, but everyone else seemed comfortable. I glanced around, trying to see my friends. Instead, I locked eyes with him. I don't know him, and he doesn't know me. There was nowhere to place my eyes now. A deer caught in headlights. I promise you that has never happened before. It wasn't love at first sight. It kind of just felt as if my soul met his. He was beautiful. He had such an even brown complexion. His teeth were perfect, and that's saying a lot because the only man I knew with perfect teeth was Sir. To make matters worse, after what felt like an eternity of gawking at him, I realized he was sitting directly beside my friends. I smiled nervously and sat down beside him.

I'm not good with dead air, and I always fill it with forced conversion and childish enthusiasm with lots of smiles, inflections, and hand gestures. I hoped it came off as flirty and cute as opposed to hyper and weird. It's hard to read his reaction. I've barely given him a chance to respond, and the music is too loud to properly hear him anyway. Abort mission! Abort! I grab my keys, excuse myself, and head to my car. I needed a time-out with some fresh air.

"I'll be right back," I gestured to Jinx and Jada as I got up.

I'm wondering at this point if he is looking at my butt. If I were him, I would be. I have a big butt. I pretended not to notice it, but we all know it's there, and it looks great, especially tonight. At this point, I'm walking to my trunk to waste time and fiddle around in my purse. That's when I hear a voice.

"Hello."

I don't know why it scared me the way it did. I dropped my keys, which by itself would've been alright had I not made a mistake and slammed the trunk on his fingers as he was bending down to grab them for me.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry."

He looked like he was still recovering from the pain and barely heard the apologies. He actually looked like he was begging me—knee on the ground, one hand holding his other hand rocking back and forth.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't...I'm so sorry."

"It's...," he breathes heavily, "....fine."

I bent down to kneel on the ground, and I wrapped my hands around his instinctively.

"It's my fault," he breathes again, "I came out to make sure you were safe, but I only managed to frighten you."

A light chuckle was all I could muster up.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Emery," I said shyly.

Standing up tall, he looked down towards me.

"Are you always this shy?" he asked.

"I'm not shy. I'm...I'm...uncomfortable."

He chuckled and said, "I'm sorry I make you uncomfortable. I'm Neil, by the way. Please know that certainly wasn't my intention."

"I mean...well, it's not you, it's me."

He leans his back against my car, his fingers locked, and arms completely stretched over and behind his head. He takes a deep breath followed by a chuckle.

"I must say I've never had a woman say that to me before."

I kicked the front of my sandal towards the sidewalk to remove the pebble stuck under my toe and rolled my eyes.

"...I mean, I'm uncomfortable because I felt a weird connection to you when I walked in, but I didn't know what to do with the feeling. I sat right beside you, and you said nothing."

"That's not normal?"

"Not in Baltimore. I could be wearing 17 wedding rings, and a guy would use it as a conversational piece to wiggle his way into my space. That's what I'm used to."

"I see. What would you have preferred?"

"I don't know. You could have asked for my name. For you to ask If I come here often. I would've noticed your accent and asked where you were from. It would've been hard to keep the conversation going over all the music so that we would've walked around outside."

"Ahh, kinda sounds like you had this all planned out."

I smirked and looked down, "No. I..."

It started with a few sporadic raindrops. You know, the light ones that touch your face but so lightly you can still ignore it. A torrential downpour of rain quickly followed it. It happened so fast we only had the car as shelter. I hopped in the passenger seat. He hopped in the back seat. We were breathing heavily like we ran a marathon, but maybe it was the spontaneity of the rain coupled with the excitement of this man keeping my company.

It kind of sounded like we were going through a car wash, especially with the bright streetlights and colorfully patterned raindrops. After gathering ourselves from the infectious chuckles, we realized we were drenched. There was a hoodie I left in the car and some old fast-food napkins. Naturally, I passed him napkins.

"Perfect timing, aye?" he said smiling.

"Yeah...," I said, "seems we may be here for a while."

"Alright then, what shall we do to pass the time?"

He took his shirt off and began to wrap napkins around his balled-up shirt to twist the moisture out. I didn't stare long. Just long enough to notice he didn't have a hairy chest. It wasn't like the back-seat light was on to really see. Maybe I was staring for longer than I thought. As I looked in the rearview mirror, I could see him putting his shirt back on. He leaned upon the armrest.

"Can I ask you a serious question?" he asked.

"Shoot."

"How long do you think it will take you to fall in love with me?"

I was fine with the cute flirting and easy-going energy for the most part, but something about him assuming I'd fall in love with him seemed cocky and was super triggering. It reminded me of all the times I was the foolish girl that fell in love too quickly and was disregarded, disrespected, and embarrassed. l was instantly frustrated. I immediately thought about Sir, Beau, Edward, Dorien, Kenzo, and Kyle. Men I've loved or valued in my lifetime who tore my heart to shreds, and each kept a piece for themselves.

I guess Neil thought I would be easily impressed by his accent and confidence and thought this would be a done deal. Nope. In my lifetime, I tried to avoid being a cynical pessimist. The only thing that kept me afloat was the idea that there were versions of me not being overlooked by men in another universe or space in time. Versions of me that get everything that this version of me wasn’t; fulfilling relationships, happiness, love, respect, and consideration, so that I could root for her/me. Even versions of me that had it worse off so that I could somehow be grateful knowing it actually could be worse.

I was so frustrated by his arrogance. I blurted out all my fears and projected them onto him.

"I think you are a beautiful man, but you're probably a condescending, arrogant prick. You're probably controlling and have the personality of a wet rag."

The rainwater is dripping from my hair and rolling down my dashboard. I didn't even realize I had turned my body around completely to meet his eyes as I lashed out.

I continued, "and you probably couldn't hold a conversation about anyone beyond your own interests to save your life. You probably make a lot of money and think you can treat women like crap. Trust me; I'd never fall in love with you!"

Where the hell did all of that come from?! It's too late now. I said it all. All of it was like verbal vomit. I would've been better off literally projectile vomiting on him. It could've been a funny story we told our kids. Why the heck would I think about kids with this man. See what I mean, it's such a battle! Guys like him always hurt me: cute, charismatic, and outgoing. At the first sight of ego and charm, my heart sounds an alarm. It's too late now. I already said it.

This surprised Neil, with the remaining beads of rainfall trailing from his hairline towards his eyebrows.

"You heard everything I said. Call me crazy, but I know I am right."

For the record, I wasn't that confident that I was right. I was scared of falling in love too quickly, so I pushed back. I channeled all the bitterness of broken hearts past, with all the strength I wished I had back then, to confront them all and tell them what I thought. By now, the rain had stopped, so I didn't have to yell over the aggressively heavy rain drops.

"I don't think I can do this," I said.

I felt drained like my entire vital force just drained out of my body from panic and was drying up. I felt stupid for overreacting to his question, but it was too late now. I've already embarrassed myself. I squinted my eyes with a low sound and raised eyebrows, "Can you just get out of my car, please?"

By the time I crossed over the armrest to the driver's side, he had closed the door. He stood on the curb facing my car with one hand in his pocket and his other hand scratching the back of his head. I could feel him looking at me with my peripheral vision. I started my car and pulled off. Wtf Emery! Really? Really?

The ride home was short, but it felt like I replayed the evening a thousand times. Thankfully, I found a parking spot in front of my building tonight. I'm glad because I didn't feel like watching my back for two blocks. As I walked in my apartment I closed the door behind me and I walked out of my clothes. I put a kettle on the stove and went to the bathroom to take my makeup off and texted Jinx to let her know I was home. As the kettle started to whistle, I wandered around the cabinets looking for my blueberry tea.

I immediately imagined that Beau walked over in his hooping shorts and socks, grabbed a cup, and leaned towards the kitchen counter across from me.

"What's wrong?"

He grabbed my hands, and we walked towards my living room. It then became his living room. We dated when I was 19. He lived with his mom and sister. His dad was in jail, so I never met him. We finished our blueberry tea and went outside to play basketball. He was always athletic. My jump shot was nice, but that's about it. We always bonded over it, though. It would usually start as us bonding, but when guys in the neighborhood would see people on the court, our one-on-one game would turn into me sitting on the sidelines while he picked up a game or two or five. I never wanted to complain. It was cool just to be around him. I should've known this wasn't MY reality, though. In this version of reality, he barely played one game. He grabbed my hand with the ball under his other arm, and we walked home. In my reality or version of this scenario, the sun would’ve be completely gone, and they finished their third game. That's when we would start walking home.

On the way back to his house, I asked him, "Why didn't we work out?"

The truth came hard.

He put his arms around me and said, "You were around too much. You came over every day after work. It just got to be too much. After a while, it kind of turned me off. I felt like you were so desperate for company that you just wanted to avoid being alone. Also, you put so much into taking care of others as opposed to focusing and fixing yourself. You know what, you weren't confident either..." he said.

The criticism trailed off like the conversation never happened, and we were back at his house. He sat back down in front of the tv and put his earphones in for his video games. I grabbed my mug off his table and walked back into my own living room. I placed the mug in my sink and turned off the light.

The sun was very bright this morning, and my summer sheets were no match for it. As I pulled them over my head, they only muffled the rays slightly. However, they were here to stay. I turn my back against the sun only to be met with Jinx's face showing up on my phone with an equally loud ringtone. I wasn't sure what she wanted, and I didn't think I was ready to know.

"You know you're crazy, right?" Jinx said as I answered the video call.

I hadn't cleared my throat yet, so my "good morning to you too" sounded more like Scuttle, the seagull, from the little mermaid trying to sing. So, the sarcasm was missed entirely. She asked what Neil had done for me to go crazy on him.

"He..."

"He what, Emery?" she persisted.

"It was something super petty, but it was so triggering."

Jinx was standing in front of the mirror, rolling her eyes and switching the conversation, "which outfit should I wear?" The options were leggings, flip flops, a white T-shirt and bucket hat, or a lavender spaghetti string top with pleated skorts and a pair of converses.

"Lavender'', I said.

"Triggering though, E? How? He gave you space at the lounge instead of being thirsty like many other men would've done. He walked you to your car despite not even knowing you just to make sure you were safe. Did he disrespect you, touch you inappropriately? What triggered you?"

Playing back the night, I know I overreacted, but it just set me off in the moment.

"He was charming and kind and then asked me how long it would be before I fell in love with him."

Jinx laid the clothes down slowly and grabbed the phone off her dresser. I explained to her that it reminded me of all of them. I felt like I had finally gotten away from being a victim of love and felt like I didn't have control when my feelings were involved. Hearing him say that made me feel like he was setting out to make me fall in love. All the dumb 'Emery in love' memories sent me down the wrong road.

"I understand, friend. I witnessed most of these heartbreaks. You have changed a lot since then, and those were relationships that you were actually in. Don't allow those relationships to cause you to defend yourself against men when you don't know their intentions. Were you uncomfortable because you are attracted to him?" she responded.

I pulled the cover over my head and let out a slightly muffled sigh, "A little bit, I guess."

Jinx put the phone close to her face and smiled hard with kissy sounds before continuing to get dressed.

"Stoppp."

"Well, look at it this way. Hopefully, you get a different impression of him today."

I flip the blanket down and sit up with a suspicious and nervous face, "What are you saying?"

"I didn't call you to look at the crust in your eyes."

I quickly rub the alleged crust out of my eyes.

"I called to check up on you from last night and also to ask if you wanted to go to brunch with everyone, including Neil, today. Given what you just explained, I hope you still say yes. Say yes."

"I don't know Jinx."

"Say yes."

"He probably thinks I'm a lunatic."

"Or maybe he just thinks you are a little crazy," she said, as she used the phone camera to apply lip gloss super close up.

"We all are a little crazy, especially me so just use me as an indicator. Just be less crazy than me. How about this, you go ahead and get dressed, and I will be at your house in 35 minutes."

"I can't. I'm too embarrassed."

"This won't be the first or last time you embarrass yourself. Get dressed, be cute, don't make things any weirder. Consider this as a redo. I'll be there in 30 min."

At this point, I'm talking to myself because Jinx has already hung up. I drag myself out of bed and into the shower. I spray my favorite perfume and put on a jean skirt and cropped t-shirt, flip flops with my hair with two space buns in the front with the rest of my locs hanging down my back. I am not sure how today's going to go, but I hope the food is great. I'm starving.

I had time to water my plants, take my vitamins, even had time to switch bags and have a cup of morning tea. It was hella relaxing. Everything she said was right. I am not the old Emery, and every man is NOT my enemy. I deserve peace, and they deserve respect. I don't know how brunch is going to go, but we shall see. Now where’s my jacket.