The Good in Goodbye
The action happening next to the drains outside caught her eye. It was a tiny mouse, the cat on the other hand looked quite well-fed and kept, probably a local champion out to stretch and prowl. He didn’t seem too interested in eating the mouse, something she was pretty sure would require very little effort, but was definitely bent on keeping it in his talons for as long as was possible. Every now and then, the cat would release his grasp slightly, the mouse would try to make a dash for it and would, before long, find itself right where it started, dragged by the tail and pinned under those claws. She felt quite sorry for this mouse.
‘The irony!’, Alina thought to herself as she dragged her gaze back to the guy seated in front of her inside the quaint café. Today he had chosen to wear a dark red shirt that said ‘Champ’ boldly on the front and knee-length khaki shorts with those distressed Chuck Taylors he loved all too much. He seemed particularly excited about whatever it was he was yapping on about, ‘some girl with a figure to kill for who he’d seen at work today, the distraction that had been and how annoying it had been when he had found out she was the boss’ girlfriend, he could swear she was checking him out the whole time’. The ridiculous oversized spectacles he was wearing weren’t helping matters much.
Alina stifled the laughter that was trying to burst out of her. ‘I should be angry’, she thought, ‘I should be in a rage’. Until today, this very moment actually, this was the person she had been in — what she thought was — a relationship with. This man, boy — one didn’t quite know which he actually was — who had swooped his way into her life with charm and promise, at a time when making an impression and showing the world that someone wanted her too was on the top of her list. This man-boy who had immediately spotted the naiveté of the girl ogling at his words and gone right in for the kill. No time had been wasted, none had been required. This girl who had just started working full time at her dream job and suddenly had more money a month than he had ever held in a year thought the world of him.
He could not believe his luck the day she decided to respond to his direct messages, he had been following her for a while, posting subtle messages aimed at her on his timeline with hopes that she’d recognize and reply, had responded to her posts and when all of those had failed he had ‘shot his shot’ and gone directly to her direct mail. Her response had been followed up with nights of long calls and finally a decision to meet. That was all it took to get her all the way hooked. No sooner had he gotten the reins than she became his literal puppet. She’d be the one to do the hour drive to his uncle’s house where he lived — after all she was the one with the car — she would bring around food, cooked or bought, listen to him talk about his exploits for the day — these usually revolved around attempts to find a job and who had said what to his social media posts — and sex. She had withheld nothing from him. He had nothing, but he spoke of the future so convincingly. He’d just had one bad stroke of luck after another till now, because she, she was his lucky charm, he’d tell her. That sizzling current would whizz through her head and her heart would outright melt.
Almost a month in, the cracks had started to show. The one-sided visits were turning into waiting games where he’d have a reason for either showing up really late while she sat outside in the car or not at all. Her calls were continuously going unanswered, while his activity on the social media site increased. Being blind to the reality of who he actually was as compared to what he portrayed online was no longer cute or about loving who he could be, his so-called “potential”. Her being his ‘lucky charm’ had turned out to be more like him using her friendship with the popular journalist to get himself what connections he needed. He would still speak of other girls and of those he had been with before as if they were still there or were some sort of trophies. The few times she had tried to pull away, like the cat outside, he’d immediately sprung unto the scene again and given just enough attention and words to keep her around.
And so far it had worked. But not today, as he spoke in that ridiculous tone about another girl yet again, fluffing his own fur to hide the wretched skeleton underneath, it was like a huge light bulb had finally turned on in Alina’s head. The cat and mouse outside must have helped too. She felt sorry for him and angry at herself. What had she actually seen in him? They would finish lunch today and go their separate ways and that was the last he would see or hear of her. She was suddenly seeing him in a way she never had before today. And she was done! She had always feared endings, but not this time, not anymore. Whatever this ‘ship’ was, whatever “potential” it held, she was finally alright to see it sail off without her, without wondering what could have been.
