Fools and fool

We walked out to the parking lot together. My face ached and I wondered what I was doing walking side by side with Daniel. Everything was going well tonight. Then I began to remember that the fact that I was here, with this girl and her problems, was all a result of things not being alright. I thought about Rebecca and wondered what she was doing tonight.

Daniel and I talked through the walk. I expressed my regrets about the events of that evening and he waved them off. “As long as you didn’t dick her.” Were his exact words. He told me some things about himself, which I didn’t listen to, and I told him a bit about myself.

“This is me.” Daniel said. It was surreal that he was so amicable. Like we’d met at a bar and had become fast drinking friends. I wondered if I had met him in a different life if we could have been enemies. He watched me over the roof of his tiny car. Those eyes of his were still gauging me. Maybe we were enemies and I wasn’t realizing it.

I rubbed my cheek and waved to him. This caused him to grin foolishly. I turned and began walking toward my own car when he shouted, “Take care of your girl Sidney.” While it sounded concerned it had the veil of a threat cast over it. Could he really be intending to visit a similar evening on me?

He ducked into his car and started it. Within moments he was weaving out of the lot. I watched the cherry lights disappear behind a crop of trees and stood for a moment longer wondering if I was a foolish person. I shook myself of the feeling and continued to my car.

Fumbling the keys and still rubbing the ache in my face I heard the sound of someone calling my name. “Please God no.” I begged. The call came again, closer, more insistent. I turned and concluded that I was a fool like no other.

Seattle jogged up to me, her auburn hair bouncing, not to mention a great deal of commotion beneath her shirt. “Please don’t leave like this.” She said though her panting.

“Like what?” I asked. Having been knocked to the deck by someone half my weight? Having to suffer his kindness after being a party to betrayal? Realizing that I’m only continuing to complicate my situation?

“Without letting me explain.” She said. Being the fool I was, I waited to hear it.

*****

Short one tonight.