why i am single part one: TOWCS

I realized I never finished my story.

I haven't seen him in almost two years, yet daily I am reminded of the relationship and the choices I made. I still wonder, sometimes, if I really did act in my best interest. It's rough, being forced to quit cold turkey when you're honestly not quite done. But I did it, albeit messily, and here I am, single. (We'll forget that The First happened, because apparently that memory is not worth worshipping.)

A few days ago, I went into the Rockville Music and Arts to pick up some books for a student. As I drove up, I saw a figure leaning against the back counter that accelerated my heartbeat at least double time. A familiar button down shirt, dark hair, stocky figure. Holy shit, I though dimly, the process of forming actual thoughts stunted by the lack of oxygen to my brain, I think that's Kevin Paro.

I thought about how he did work in Rockville for a time, I thought about the manager turn over, I thought about Mary saying a year ago he'd be coming back. All of this went through my head in a split second.

I walked into the store, completely unprepared to say anything, unwilling to believe it was actually the Asshole.

And yet, I hoped, desperately, that it was.

Some things never change, you know? And I'm okay with that. Like my friend said, you'll never fully forget someone that held that sort of a spot in your heart. But I'm not afraid of him, and I'm not the begging girl I used to be. I have grown up a lot over the past two years. I've changed. Even though I still have no honest to God idea what I would say to him, I know that if it happened, I would be okay. Sure, it'd shake me. But I am at a good place right now. I am fiercely in love with being with no one but myself. I am being selfish, independent, young. And I guess these types of days are limited, so I'm not going to waste them.

The simple fact that I can joyfully embrace being single made it okay that I had no valentine, no plans, no hopes of anything Saturday. It made me not bitter. It made it more difficult - and yet easier, at the same time - to do this series on relationships over the past week. And absofuckinglutely absurdly, it made it somehow okay to spend the entire night and morning talking to a boy I barely knew and spending most of my Valentine's Day night in his arms.

But back to my story.

Belief crushed hope, and I was right. It wasn't him, and as I scrutinized the man I thought was TOWCS, I could see the similarities that made me think it was him, and yet it was so clearly not. At the same time, for all intents and purposes, it might have as well been him. I said nothing to him, he said nothing to me. And if I ever do meet him, the real Asshole, I have a suspicion that our reunion wouldn't be all that different.