“What do you want to do tonight?” Jacob asked me as we ate our sandwiches in the park. It was a beautiful fall day– the sun was clear and bright, like a yellow cookie in a cloudless sky. I loved Autumn, but there was just something depressing about leaving behind the careless days of summer. Winter in Chicago was approaching, which was usually long and brutal.
I took a bite of my turkey sandwich and washed it down with a Coke.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe we can rent a movie?”
“That sounds fine with me,” Jacob replied. He finished his sandwich and sipped his juice. “But, we rented a movie last weekend. Isn’t there something else that you’d like to do?”
“I don’t know…” I answered. “I’m kind of tired.”
I wasn’t lying when I said that I was tired. I was a kindergarten teacher, which left me physically and emotionally drained each week when Friday decided to appear. Being Saturday, I had a few errands to run in the morning, and my afternoon was spent hanging out with Jacob. Even though I didn’t have a packed schedule today, I still couldn’t shake off my school week.
“Okay, let’s get going,” he said. I threw away the rest of my sandwich in the park garbage can and climbed into Jacob’s car. We drove to his apartment and walked upstairs. Jacob shared an apartment with his brother Ted, who was out of town this weekend.
“You know, it’s just us tonight,” Jacob said, as we snuggled into the couch and started watching Grease.
“I’m kind of tired for that tonight, Jacob,” I responded.
“Oh, come on! You can’t be serious. How often are we alone here?” he asked. He began to kiss my neck, and stroked my hair. “Come on, baby.”
After a few minutes, I agreed. I began to kiss him back, feeling his lips become passionate. Five minutes later, we were in his bed.
*
That night I slept a dark, dreamless sleep. I awoke with a start, looking at the time.
Shit, it’s 3 a.m. I didn’t want to wake Jacob, so I tip toed out of bed and found my clothes on the floor. I got dressed and grabbed my purse. I let myself out of his apartment, and found my car in his apartment’s parking lot.
As I began to drive, I started thinking about him. For some reason during the Autumn months, I always thought about Theo. I remembered the way he used to hold me, kiss me, and tell me I was beautiful. I would remember the summer nights that we spent at the beach, kissing under the stars, and the vanilla ice cream he would buy me on the boardwalk. What Theo and I had was true love. It was beautiful and magical. It was so perfect that it didn’t last.
Our romance was so real, that sometimes when I dream of him, I can actually feel his fingers around my waist, his tongue dancing with mine. To try to move on, I started dating Jacob. I knew Jacob loved me, but I couldn’t return the favor. I was aimlessly dating him to fix the wounds that Theo had left in my heart.
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