aruan | Nothing herein is worth your time.

Mum and I stopped in to McAlister's for lunch after putting in a not-yet-over eight hour day. Rest our legs, refocus, plus nummy lunch food. Winning plan, no?

Decidedly not when I looked up while we were waiting for our food to see someone I haven't spoken more than an 'excuse me' or 'pass it down' to for six years. Fucker's supposed to be in New York living his own goddamned life in his own motherfucking zip code.

Most of whatever appetite I had went away when I thought I recognized the blonde hair mostly covered by a baseball cap; I knew it was him when he smiled. There are certain things you'll always remember about certain people, and his has always been the easy, content way he smiles, the same smile that can mean anything from genuine happiness to detached bemusement and you had to look in his eyes to know.

So he smiles at something a friend of mine he was with said and the bottom drops out of my stomach, my chest gets tight, my hands shake, but instead of flight there's this fish out of water paralysis. It's falling and sinking and weightlessness all at once, no center of gravity or horizon line to orient yourself. I was getting nauseous just sitting there, riding this lurching wave. Like when you're too scared to do anything like scream or run and just stand there when all you want to do is make for the nearest private corner and vomit until you purge your very soul. If you'd asked me to say something, my voice would've probably broken on a sob or stumbled over the eloquent dual syllable of 'hello.' It's remarkable (fucking ridiculous is more like it, but go with my detached objectivist here) how the mere presence of that boy can fuck with my head even now.

I felt like a cartoon character, who'd run off a cliff and had been doing fine because I hadn't known, finally realizing the ground was no longer anything but a clever trick of assumption (hope?) But goddamn it, I've got plenty of ground, had it before and after him, so what. the. fuck?

And of course he had to see me like this. There's every chance they saw me way before I ever even noticed them - we were at the table for a good five-seven minutes and they were sitting directly across from us, unobstructed view and all. I was tired, a bit overwhelmed, hungry, sweaty, unkempt, in a ratty shirt and jeans and old sneakers, stringy hair and not a lick of makeup as I'd sweated off what little foundation I'd bothered with earlier that morning. Not that the how and when mattered, but I (without any reason) already lose whatever cool or composure I usually muster when standing next to him, so this was a special kind of insult to injury.

I managed to choke down half of my usually beloved Reuben sandwich. Put it this way, especially to Miranda - I didn't even finish my iced tea. I was pretty much in this morose stupor for a lot of the ride back - apparently I'd told my mother the sordid saga some time ago, as she knew the name without my saying it and even more tellingly, knew not to talk about it.

This was supposed to be over such a fucking long time ago, I feel like a complete tool for even reacting at all. I was supposed to be too smart for it the first time, and shame on me for how all that went down. This? Just pathetic. The boy makes me hate myself, turns me into all the horrifying things I dread to ever let anyone glimpse, and it all comes out just from being in the same room with him. It's theater of the absurd, only morbid enough to put Mickey Mouse on Prozac. I despise him for what he can still do to me now more deeply than I ever felt anything else for him.

It's a very good thing that activities later in the afternoon involved taking a hammer to a wood and metal bedframe. Beats self-flagellation any day.

Fuck. Anyone who knows who I'm talking about please do everyone a favor and whack me upside the head the next time you see me.