Doink! A text knocks at my phone and I fish for it in my backpack purse

Looking at the name, I shiver. “Oh, yeah,” I think, “THAT’S not going to happen.”

But I am, for a moment, pulled back in memory to early mistakes.

At the time we met - I, of course, was looking for love - or more like a confirmation that I was lovable to someone who had experiences. He was just taking me to parties and trying to get in my pants.

So you could say we met at the busy intersection of realities and we became entangled at the invisible speed of hummingbird wings.

He was charming in an “I don’t care” way - because he wasn’t a great actor and he didn’t care. Careless is the perfect word for our relationship. He was like an out of towner at some rowdy conference with one eye on the exit.

I thought, for a hot minute, that he knew something about the world that I needed to know. I teased him, pressing for details about girls he’d slept with and in general mined him for ****** stories, tidbits, truths and lies. He pressed me for new stories to tell.

I wasn’t “myself” with him either. I was difficult but sincere and vulnerable because, at that point, I couldn’t commit fully - if you know what I mean - and didn’t know HOW to not care. Yet, I was trying to be what I thought an older guy would want. Maybe I should have worn a sign: “caution: imagination in progress”.

Memories. *shiver