Feeling Alive Again

“What did i just fucking see?” I can't believe my eyes. Alice has been ducking me for the last couple days and it all makes sense now. I just saw her with her ex that for the last three years she claimed she was done with even though I've had my suspicions. Three years. Three fucking years wasted on chasing her and believing her lies that someday wed be together. She said she had to get her life together and like an idiot I believed her. I was just shocked. Shocked but sadly not surprised really.

I sat my frozen pizza down and calmly walked past her and her ex and grabbed a case of beer and paid and left. Not saying a word. Just cold and empty. The whole way home though I am thinking of everything I could or should have said. So many one liners I could have gotten in. it is probably for the best that i kept my tongue. I was so stupid for not seeing the signs that she was using me. I paid for everything. Lent her vehicles, gave her a place to stay. Oh how those kisses and good wishes shall haunt me. Damn her for making me feel special. Damn me for being such a putz.

As I pull into the driveway and head into the house, I am constantly checking my phone. An apology? An explanation? Surely she has to know that I'd be hurt, right? As I sit down on the couch and crack a beer, I don't turn a light on. No music, no television. just me and the thundering memories and all the red flags that i so happily ignored because i was blinded by hope and daydreams. All the promises. All the times I believed her and thought she loved me and all the good intentions she had. Empty promises and good intentions are just a fancy way of lying. I see that now. I texted my best friend Tori and simply said that I need to vent because my night had just gone to absolute crap.

Tori and I have been friends for nearly as long as I have known Alice. She had been dating my friend on and off for a few years and we've gotten close. We pretty much turned to each other with relationship problems and have always been there to vent when needed. Their relationship was incredibly toxic. He's been a close friend for a long time but he's narcissistic and controlling. I'm pretty sure he never really loved her, just loved her body. The fighting has been so bad in the past between them that their neighbors could hear it after the bar would close. He has kicked her out and with nowhere safe to go she'll come stay with me. My place was always a safe place because she knew that I'd never try anything. I just wanted her to be safe.

She came over and by this time I was certainly multiple beers in and not really feeling sorry for myself. Not mad. Not sad just somewhere in that gray area of existing where you kind of just breathe and drink and that's all you can muster. I tell her everything that happened, and we talk about the past and how I shouldn't be mad at myself. We decided to open a bottle of wine and drink to the future. She told me her and Derek are done but he doesn't seem to get it. She shrugs it off. We drink one bottle and she's cracking jokes and making me laugh. Making me forget how my heart had just been stepped on just not long ago by someone that in my mind was my soul mate. After a while she suggests we go to the hot tub.

I left the room to go change and when I returned, she was patiently waiting. She jokingly said that she was jealous that I had a nicer butt than she does. This caught me off guard so I replied by telling her that I thought her butt was very nice. I felt so awkward and wished I could have said something more funny. I asked if she brought her swimsuit and she just said “nah I'll just go in my bra and panties. Those are basically a bikini right?” I chuckled and said yeah I guess. She stripped down to just her thong and bra and marched out to the hot tub without a care in the world. We kept on talking but she was getting closer and closer to me and to be honest I hoped she would keep inching her way over. For sometime we’d always joke about going skinny dipping during the summer time but never did . there's always been a hint of attraction between us but it never was the right time to pursue such delights. I bring this up. This is probably as close to skinning dipping as we are going to get. She laughed and removed her remnants of clothing and swam over and holding my head in her hands asked if this was going to change anything between us? I said I don't know. You're still going to be my best friend and I'm still going to tell you all my random thoughts and dark humor jokes. She said good and proceeded to kiss me. The passion, the lust, and the genuine love for one another that we have had tucked away for years spilled out and the night had gone from a horrible encounter to something I shall cherish.

We made love under the stars to the subtle murmur of the jets in the tub. Just us. No one else in the world seemed to exist. Her wet skin letting the moon light reflect off of it, her breasts heaving with every breath. The sound of my name over her lips. All of this was perfect. No worries, no stress, no broken hearts and shattered dreams. Nothing else mattered to me, to her, to us. Afterwards we made garlic bread in the toaster oven, and I burned my hand and we laughed about it while laid in the bed upon towels as we were still dripping wet from the tub. We fell asleep like that. Just us and not a care in the world.