I was sitting on the couch. Curled up in as tight a ball as I could put my big ass in when there was a knock on my cousins door. Oh no, it was the friend. “Don’t let your RBF give the wrong impression” I tell myself. It will. It always does. About the time I get my eyebrows under control his friends walks through the front door. My first thought was, “cool I can go now because his friend is here “. Thank you friend! But then said friend made eye contact. No there wasn’t a gust of wind and a random ray of sunlight pouring in on him but there was something. It could have been anything from one night stand potential to this man will be my forever. We shall see.
My cousin introduced us. “Michelle, this is Daniel” he says. I smile and give a slight wave. “Daniel, this is my cousin Michelle. Stop looking at her tits”. Daniel quickly snaps his eyes up and looks in me in the face, “nice to meet you”. It almost looked like he was gonna try to hug me? That was weird. Maybe I imagined it. Yes, I imagined it. He an and my cousin start chatting it up and catching up. Apparently it had been a while since they had seen each other. I took this time to gather myself and put the anxiety away for another day. I kinda succeeded, ish.
It didn’t take long for me to gather that this dude paces! Eww. Just sit still! He would pace into the kitchen and talk to my cousin and then pace back into the livingroom and still be talking to my cousin in the kitchen. Only a little louder so he could hear him. That’s not annoying at all. Eventually, everytime he would pace back into the livingroom he would look at me. Oh crap, here we go. Insert eye roll emoji. Let me guess, he’s thinking “I bet because she’s heavy, she’ll put out”. Wrong-O! But I’ll let you think that and have a little fun for a minute.
Eventually my cousin asks me to come to his bedroom so he can show me some the jewelry he still has since his mom passed. Her passing was rough on me. Almost as hard as loosing my own my mom a few years earlier. As I get up to head towards the room Daniel positions himself so I have to walk past him. Clever. More eye roll emojis, please. I am about to walk by him I notice my nail feels likes burning. Now for this next part of the story keep in mind I always have my nails done and very long. I look at my hand to see what the hell happened and there is blood under the nail. Daniel notices and asks “Oh no, did you break a nail?”. I am no stranger to being asked this question is every condescending way possible and frankly, I get a little sick of it. So I dryly reply, “yeah, better cut the finger off” and keep walking towards the hallway leading to the room where my cousin is.
We must have been in that room for 30 minutes going through the jewelry and memory lane when he realizes that the friend has been left in the livingroom. So. We put the memories away for now and head back into the rest of the house, where in fact, the friend was still there. Pacing. “Aw man, I’m sorry. We got caught up talking about mom.” Daniel waves him off, “nah man, it’s all good. I get it ” all while making eye contact with me. Banter picks back up and I join in a few of their off the wall conversations when that obvious, “time to wind this party down” feel creeps in. Thank God, I want to go back home where the people aren’t and the books are!
Daniel decides to go start his truck, after all it is January. Probably a good call. I assuming he has left, continue our cousin catch up after not being in contact for over 10 years. I am leaning on the bar listening to my cousin talk about how losing my sister impacted him and how senseless it is to die of alcoholism at 37 is. All while drinking a tall boy. I notice a certain buddy pacing around behind me. “Weren’t you leaving?” I ask. “Uh yeah. Trucks not warm “. Daniel says with an odd nervous tone. “And how do you know that if you’re not in it?”. He looked at like I had suddenly flicked him in the nose. I turn back around to leave him with his thoughts and finish up the conversation with my cousin.
We start to wrap up that evenings stroll down memory lane and I can see the low grade panic set in to his friend out of the corner of my eye. As I am about to shove off the bar and grab my purse when a lit up phone slides in on my left side with the words “may I be so bold?” coming from Daniel’s mouth. My brain instantly says “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”
How Did I Get Here? 