Take Two

We closed the doors of the office building. And my brain remembers that we had a wild ride. I didn’t think starting a company with my best friend would result in losing it and our relationship. It was starting off with a bang. I was getting investors with my short skirts, friendly smiles, and appealing pitches. He was working on developing the products. The celebration sex was phenomenal then there were the long days and hours of working on keeping the business going.

Eventually he took breaks away from the offices and I started to smell the perfume of someone else. I thought it was ok with me because we didn’t call our relationship official. I was also personally getting sick of him too. I was starting to wonder about other men.

I think he checked out first and I followed shortly after. And the closing of the doors broke my heart because it ended everything. It should have ended sooner like when he got engaged, after the bachelor party, before the wedding ceremony. We were pretty bad.

But it ended shortly before the lease sign went up. I guess that's how young love goes. I gave up corporate life and started to volunteer around the world. I had been meaning to see all the countries around me.

I helped children learn how to read. I assisted farmers with crops. I set up schools with my background of pitching, sharing, and creating connections between community members.

It was in Bangkok where I thought I saw some familiar brown hair with a wide build and a light blue suit. I thought no it can’t be him. The last rumor I heard was he had like five children in Idaho. He wouldn’t have left the kids to go do a sales pitch in a foreign country.

Then he turned around and his unmistakable blue eyes pierced through my heart once more.

“Megan, is that you?”

I was startled at the sound of my name. “Yes,” I said without skipping a beat to show my excitement and delight. He laughed. “Oh God, is it good to see you. What has been like ten years?”

“I think more like twelve.”

“Wow you look amazing! Can I buy you a drink?”

“Let’s go to Old Town.”

As we head down the streets my heart is skipping a beat and wondering what will happen next. I never thought we would talk again and I don’t think he would offer me a drink if he wasn’t free. He ended the affair before the business closed realizing it was right to continue the occasional slip up because it was so much fun.

It was dangerous and challenging to be in the same room. I wondered if he felt the same or wanted a quick pick me up while he was traveling. Maybe it was being lost in a foreign city with an old and familiar face. It could have been the sunsetting and the magnificent views of city life.

In any case, he asks “what is happening in your life? Are you seeing someone? How is work?”

I smiled and said “nope not seeing anyone and I have been volunteering around the world since we closed.”

He tells me that the relationship ended up in divorce about six months after we closed the company. Apparently she was out having affairs; he suspected it when she got pregnant. He was sterile and for the hell of it he paid for the paternity test and it wasn’t his.

He was traveling around the world selling new products on his own which wasn’t his speciality. There is warmth in his smile that is filling my soul and he asks “Do you want to try again?”

I lazily stir the olive in my drink when I ask him “The business or us?”

“I was hoping for both.”

I whisper “yes.”