On a muted giggle, I shook my head, and I didn’t hesitate for a second to lift my phone above my head to snap my own picture. Going for my silliest expression, I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out to the side.
So maybe the people milling around me in the middle of the busy store thought I was crazy, or some kind of delusional narcissist, but nothing inside me cared. I’d do anything to see him smile.
I tapped the button so I could write on the picture.
Love you, goofball.
I pushed send.
Seconds later, it chimed again. I clicked to receive his message. This time he was just smiling that unending smile, sitting crossed legged in the middle of his bed, radiating all his beauty and positivity, and that sorrow hit me again, only harder.
Love you back, he'd written on the image.
Letting the timer wind down, I clutched my phone as I cherished his message for the full ten seconds, before our snap expired. The screen went blank. I bit at the inside of my lip, blinking back tears.
Don’t, I warned myself, knowing how quickly I could spiral into depression, into a worry I couldn’t control, one that would taint the precious time I had with him.
Sucking in a cleansing breath, I tossed my phone back into my purse and wandered over to the cosmetics section, browsing through all the shades and colors of lip gloss. I tossed a shimmery clear one into my cart, then strolled into the shampoo aisle.
Apparently I was in no hurry to get home. It was sad and pathetic, yet here I was, twenty-three years old and passing away my Friday night at a Target.
Ben texted me earlier saying he was going out to grab a beer with the guys and not to wait up for him. All kinds of warning bells went off in my head when I realized him leaving me alone for the night only filled me with an overwhelming relief. That realization hurt my heart, because he’d always been good to me, there for me when I was broken and needed someone to pick up the pieces, making me smile when I thought I never would again.
But with Ben? There had always been something missing. Something significant.
That flame.
The spark that lights you up inside when the one walks into the room. You know the one, the one you can’t get off your mind, whether you’ve known him your entire life or he just barreled into it.
Was it wrong I craved someone like that for myself?
Maybe I’d be content with Ben if I’d never felt the flame before. If I’d never known what it was like to need and desire.
But I had. It’d been the kind of fire that had raged and consumed, burning through me until there was nothing left but ashes. I’d thought that love had ruined me, until Ben came in and swept me into his willing arms.
He’d taken care of me, a fact I didn’t take lightly. I honored and respected it, the way Ben honored and respected me.
So maybe I never looked the same or felt the same after he’d destroyed something inside of me. But I’d survived and I forced myself to find satisfaction in that, willed it to make me stronger instead of feeble and frail.
I tossed a bottle of shampoo I really didn’t need into my cart, but it smelled all kinds of good, like vanilla and the sweetest flower, and today I didn’t feel like questioning my motives. In fact, I tossed in a body wash for good measure. I rarely treated myself, and I figured I deserved it. The last four years had been spent working my ass off, striving toward my elementary education degree at Arizona State University, and I’d finally landed my first real job a month ago.
Pride shimmered around my consciousness. Not the arrogant kind. I was just…happy. Happy for what I had achieved.
I bit the inside of my lip, doing my best to contain the ridiculous grin I felt pulling at my mouth.
Finally….finally…I’d attained something that was all on me.
Ben was always the one who took care of me. But he also had a bad habit of taking all the credit. Like my life would fall apart without him in it.
Slowly, I wound my way up toward the registers. I needed to get out of here before I drained what little I had in my checking account with all my celebrating.