But You Loved Me

I should have said something. I don’t know what I should have said, but I should have said something. Now I was right back to where I started. No idea if or when I was going to see him again, and completely clueless as to what the hell was going on inside his head. Although that second one was something I was quite used too.

I didn’t know what was going on. At all. I didn’t even have the slightest clue, and I hated it. Okay, so Frank had always been a little unpredictable, but he’d never confused me like this. I just want him to be straight with me, so I know where we stand. So I don’t turn this into something it’ll never be… although I think I might have already gone down that road. I just wish I knew what was going on in his head, because if I knew any better, I’d say he’d forgotten me. But, he couldn’t have. Could he? He loved me.

*

After almost a week of hoping he’d walk through the door in search of books, or that I’d run into him in the coffee shop and being constantly let down, I was reaching the point of giving up. I was stupid to have thought that things could have worked out, that we could have had… something again. I should have known I was living in my head. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that I made the whole thing up. But I didn’t. He was real, that I was sure of. My imagination could never do him justice.

I flipped idly through the stacks of books on the shelves, occasionally pulling out something old and dusty and tossing it into the sale basket beside me - although they probably would have been better of heading straight for the trash – praying it would pass some time before I could take my lunch break and finally breathe air again, but if anything, it just made the time pass slower, and it certainly wasn’t taking my mind off anything.

“Y’know I heard somewhere that if you smile, then your customers might actually come back,” my head shot up to find him leaning against the shelves beside me, arms folded across his chest. My heart stuttered slightly, and I quickly had to remind myself not to come across as a love struck puppy. “I mean really, it can’t be that bad,” he smiled. I paused for a moment as I tried to remember how to speak, before I managed to open my mouth to answer.

“How ‘bout you do this every day, six days a week,” I suggested with a smile.

“No thanks, but in all fairness, you did take the job, can’t really blame anyone for your lack of ambition,” he shrugged, and at that exact moment, everything felt like it had when we were eighteen. And he looked like the same obnoxious little kid he had then… with a different haircut. My eyebrows raised.

“I have plenty of ambition,” I insisted as I grabbed another book from the shelf.

“Yeah, I can tell,” he glanced around the store, I rolled my eyes, heading past him to another set of shelves, trying not to think about how natural this felt, how easy it was, especially in comparison to our previous meetings.

“Did you just come to insult me? Or did you actually want something?” I asked, as he followed me to the next row of books, “because I do have the authority to throw you out,” I threatened, although really, we both knew I wouldn’t have done it.

“Actually, I’ll have you know I am a paying customer. Or I will be, when I look for something, but right now I’m happy being insulting,” he smiled; I paused to look at him and found myself smiling back. “And I did come to find out when you’re free. Figured we could hang out again,” he added, I bit back another – wider – smile as I glanced over at the clock.

“I get off for lunch in half and hour,” I told him, although my tone made it sound like more of a question than a statement.

“I think I can find something to busy myself with until then,” he smiled and disappeared behind a row of shelves, I smiled. He was real. But now I was faced with the same problem as before, what the hell was going on? But if one thing was certain, I intended to find out, today.