Balcony Confessions Are So Overrated

“Listen, sweetie, Evie…” Joel started as we were sitting at the table of an overly expensive restaurant in town. I kept my eyes on his, but he was staring at the table.

“Could you look me in the eye, please? You’re making me feel like you committed a crime,” I joked, confused. He looked up at me, guilt clear in his eyes. “What did you do?”

“I… Two days… A few… Well,” he stuttered.

“Just spit it out, Joel,” I growled, dreading what he was going to say. Anger was growing inside me. I could almost guess what he had done.

“This past year with you has been… amazing. But-”

“How did I know there’d be a but?” I muttered under my breath.

Joel continued, “But, a few nights ago I suddenly felt suffocated, like I was stuck with you for the rest of my life. And I just really felt like I needed a change… So I went to a bar-”

“What did you do?” I interrupted.

“Stop interrupting me for a second and I’ll be able to tell you,” he snapped. I pressed my lips tight, making the motions of zipping and locking them. “Thank you, now where was I? Oh, yeah, so I went to a bar two nights ago, and I met this girl. She was really quite amazing and… we got to talking and all of a sudden we were at her apartment and well, we slept together, Evie. I’m really sorry, and it will never ever happen again, I swear.” I stared into his green eyes; a lock of strawberry blond hair fell in front of his right one. He flicked it away. I could see the relief of admitting it in his eyes.

“You’re right. It won’t happen again.” I felt a lump forming in my throat as I choked to get the words out, “You know why? Because you can’t cheat on me again, we’re over.” I grabbed my purse from the arm of my chair and stood up. I couldn’t believe I’d gotten all dressed up for this creep. I turned to him before I left making sure to look him in the eye. “I understand it took a lot of courage to tell me that, but, if you ever speak to me, or call me again, I will make sure that you don’t date another girl in this very large city of Toronto.” I turned and began walking out the door but then thought of something and went back to him. “And I hope this girl likes spaghetti.” I grabbed the pasta that Joel had been eating and poured the tomato drenched noodles onto his head.

I walked down the street half expecting Joel to come after me.

He didn’t.

==========
___

I walked into my apartment and slammed the door. I threw my purse on the ground. I threw myself onto bed that had arrived this afternoon from my old place. I let the tears that had been stinging my eyes since the restaurant fall freely now. My strangled sobs echoed through the too silent room.

I pulled myself off the couch and went over to the stereo I had in one of the boxes in the corner of the room. I pulled it out and plugged it into the nearest outlet. I immediately went back to the same box I’d extracted the stereo from and retrieved a CD. I shoved it into the disc player and pressed play skipping through a few songs to get to the one I wanted.

“Coming out of my cage and I been doing just fine. Gotta, gotta be down ‘cause I
want it all.” I sang along with Brandon Flowers to Mr. Brightside.

I continued listening and singing along to a mixed CD I’d made a while ago just for this occasion, hoping that I would never have to listen to it. I changed into an extremely oversized gray sweater that reached about mid thigh. I went to the fridge I had in the corner of the living room, I dug through the freezer at the top until I found the pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream that I always kept there. I found a spoon in a box I’d placed near it and dug into my comfort food. I went back over to the bed and lay down.

I don’t know how long I was laying there when the glass door opened to the balcony. Ainsley was standing there for the second time tonight. Tears were still streaming down my face and I wasn’t able to spit out a sarcastic comment, when I tried more sobs just erupted from my throat.

He wasn’t looking at me when he spoke, “Could you turn that crap down, Doll? My ears feel like they’re bleeding.” He finally looked at me, “Doll! What’s wrong?” He walked over to my bed and sat down on the edge.

“I… Joel… He… Asshole…” I sputtered at Ainsley. His face contorted in confusion.

“Do you mean that I’m an asshole or Joel is?” he asked. I couldn’t help but giggle a bit through my tears.

“Both!” I cried, “I dumped Joel’s sorry ass.”

“Then… why are you crying if he was the one who was dumped?” His face scrunched up in confusion, he looked really cute. God, what was I saying? This guy was Satan.

“Because, the bastard cheated on me.” Fresh tears sprang into my eyes. It just seemed that when I said it out loud, it became truer.

Ainsley didn’t seem to know what to know what to do about the salty rivers spilling down my cheeks. I felt his weight shift from the edge of my bed to next to me. He wrapped his arms around me.

“It’s okay, Doll. I’ll distract you from it.”

“I do not want to have sex with you. That is not an appropriate distraction.” My voice sounded terrible, my nose was so full of mucus that I could barely breathe; I was surprised I could even get out any words.

Well, that’s not what I was thinking of, but now that you suggest it that would a fantastic distraction. But, no, I’ll go with my original idea. Just a second, I’ll be right back.” He jumped off the bed and went onto the balcony; I leaned forward to watch how he climbed over. He lifted himself onto the railing and jumped, I saw him land on his own veranda and go into his apartment. I was curious to see what he meant by distracting me.

I found out when he came back with a bottle of vodka and two glasses.

“So your way of distracting me is to get me drunk?” I inquired with a raise of the eyebrow and a sniff from my running nose.

“How else are you supposed to drown your sorrows?” He took the cap off the vodka bottle and poured it into the cups; he filled it almost to the brim. He handed one glass to me and raised the other one to give a toast. “To really shitty relationships.”

I wiped my nose and sniffed before exclaiming, “Here, here!” We clinked glasses and I took a small sip. It burned slightly as it went down. I looked over at Ainsley and saw that he had downed his drink in about two gulps. He looked over at me and laughed at the amount of vodka I had drunk.

“Come on, you can drink better than that. You just tilt your head back,” he put his hands on my forehead and neck. “Then swallow.” He demonstrated tilting the head back using his hands to move my head. He let go, and I found myself missing his large warm hand on my neck. But, I shrugged off that feeling and threw back the vodka.