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I flip through a lot of my memories with him in my mind, like a photo album, some of them making me smile, others bringing laughter, and the most bittersweet bringing tears to my eyes that I wipe away hastily. Hours pass this way, lost in thought, and by the time I click back into reality, it’s fully dark out, stars twinkling overhead.
“Shit,” I mutter, grabbing my phone from the small table beside my chair to check the time. It’s just past 7 p.m., and I have a single missed text from Lili.
I open it, and smile at the picture of my sister and her friends and one of our favorite Pho restaurants. It’s captionedWe just got here! Come grab a drink!
If I had gotten the message when it was sent an hour ago, I might have taken her up on the offer, but at this point, they had to be nearly done with the meal. Still, I tap the picture to make it bigger, taking some solace in how at peace my sister is.
It’s only after gazing at the photo for a moment that I see a familiar face in the background, framed by wavy, brown hair. Quickly, I zoom in, and just like I had expected, it’s Tatiana. I zoom out a little to look closer at the other person at her table who is more in the shadows, and harder to identify.
But I can recognize him anywhere. It’s Andries. He’s out with Tatiana.
My mouth goes dry, and my fingers fly over the text keyboard.
Roxanne: Do you see who is in the background of that picture??
Lili: Ugh. Yes. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.
Roxanne: Oh, I noticed. Fuck him.
After spending hours of my time parsing through memories of my ex, trying to determine the right course of action, and finally determining that I still wanted to be with him, it just figures that the universe would give me a big fat sign that he had already moved on.
I don’t want to accept it. I can’t. He had sworn so many times that Tatiana wasn’t appealing to him at all as a romantic partner; she was too innocent, too naive, and that they were just friends. I believed him completely, and even in Lili’s picture, they aren’t posed like two lovers would be. It was probably just a dinner between friends.
None of that matters, though. He was still there, at one of my favorite restaurants, flaunting his young new thing in front of my sister. Like a trophy. As if to say, “I dare you to send this to your sister” or “This is what I really want. A young, pure girl. Not your whore of a sister.”
I throw my phone hard, like a softball, onto the couch, pacing the floor like someone who has gone mad. I was staying in tonight, taking some self-care time to gather my emotions back into something more manageable. I’m definitely not going to go to the pho restaurant and tell Andries everything he hasn’t given me the chance to.
“Fuck!” I mutter to myself. “Fuck him!”
There are a million other things I could do. I can throw myself into work, working out the schedules for the next week, or I could drink myself into a stupor and forget that Andries had ever been out with Tatiana. I would love to be able to shower, and fall asleep watching some random movie, but I was so full of angry energy that there was no hope for it.
I find my box of cigarettes, pulling one out and stomping back out to the balcony, lighting it, and taking a long drag. Smoke fills my lungs, hot and soothing, and hangs heavy in the air as I exhale. My robe flutters around me as I finishthe cigarette, trying and failing to come up with any other plan besides the ones that involve me going to that damned restaurant and giving out to Andries like I’ve been wanting to for days now.
I light another cigarette, pulling the robe closer around me as I repeat a mantra in my head.
I’m not going, I’m not going, I’m not going.
It doesn't help, though. I have no control over the intrusive thoughts that are bombarding me. Andries and Tatiana laughing together in the restaurant, her foot running up his leg under the table. Andries holding the car door open for Tatiana, and sliding in beside her, close enough for their hips to touch. Him inviting her up to his apartment, freshly scrubbed of any trace of me, ready for Tatiana to leave her mark. Andries’ bedroom door—
“Dammit,” I sigh, putting out the cigarette in the ashtray on the side table and pulling my phone back out. There’s no help for it. I’m going to the restaurant.
Roxanne: Are they still there?
Lili: They just left. Roxie, don’t make a scene.
I have two options. Try to cut them off before they get too far from the restaurant, which would be nearly impossible, considering they’d probably take a cab. My other option is to meet Andries back at his apartment. It didn’t matter if he still had Tatiana in tow, because at least I’d get a chance to speak with him.
And show that perfect little girl that I am not done with Andries. Not by a long shot.
Mind made up, I order an Uber on my phone, and take fifteen minutes till arrival to dress myself for a fight. Dark denim jeans, leather boots that reach past my knees, and a matching leather jacket. Dark enough that I could stand in the shadows and Andries won’t see me from the street, and sexy enough that he will get a good look at what he’s missing out on.
It’s a brief ride to Andries’s place, and I let out a relieved breath that all the lights are still off inside. There is a small patch of space between his building and the neighboring one; not quite an alley, but a large enough recess that I can lean into it and wait, almost invisible from the road.
It isn’t exactly a balmy night, but thankfully it doesn’t take long for the sleek, blacked out coupe to roll up at the apartment building and drop Andries off. He’s dressed casually, like I noticed in the picture, and his posture is more relaxed than I expected. The few times I’ve seen him in the flesh recently he’s been stiffer than a board, but I guess dinner and conversation withTatianarelaxes him. Asshole.
I hold my breath after he steps out of the car, expecting the perfect flower girl to follow him out into the night, but to my immense happiness he simply closes the car door behind him, and it departs, exhaust fumes visible as it goes. Andries came home alone. He wasn’t bringing his date home to sleep with.
Could it mean that he hasn’t really moved on? Could it really have been just a friendly dinner?
