On Purpose

~18~

My heart was high and my body even higher as Isabelle sat across from me and stuffed her face with her taco.
"What?" She asked with her mouth full. I shook my head and looked away.
"You wanna know something weird?"
I raised my gaze with a question for her to continue.
"You don't eat in front of me."
I scanned through our moments together and she mainly did all the eating.
"No," I said to my defense, "I ate some Cheetos at the park."
She dropped her taco and gave me a dumbfounded look.
"You ate two flipping Cheetos."
I look away again, but still spoke to her, "I have a small stomach."
Her expression doesn't change.
"Yeah right-eat this." She hands me her half eaten taco.
"No, that's yours."
"We're friends, what's mine is yours and what's yours is mine."
I sighed and looked at her, waiting for any kind of resistance from her.
"Fine." I say when I didn't see any. Her eyes only held hope and cheerfulness.
I reached over and took a bite of her taco, her eyes never left me as I pulled away and chewed.
"So?"
"What? It tastes like a taco."
"Shut up." She smacks her lips and goes back to eating her taco that I once bit off of.
"Hey, Miss. Purpose?"
"Yeah?"
As I look at her and prepare myself to spill my shitty day. Starting with my boss suing Mark Willmore, down to my childhood and Jessie. I don't. I stare at her, her chocolate brown eyes that have the same effect on me. My heart high, and my body even higher, I couldn't ignore it. This effect Isabelle has on me. Like she's standing in a field and we're ninety feet away from each other but we can still talk to each other as if we were two feet away. As if she could reach out and brush those pretty fingers against my face and tell me things nobody has ever told me.
I watch her wait for me, she waits for me to continue, but I can't. The words choke me like cigarette smoke. I feel my throat tightening as if my past came to the present and told me to shut the fuck up for once, handle this by yourself.
She has her own problems, why should she deal with mine too?
"You should get a chop."
Her eyes search mine to see if I was being serious.
"Ya think?" She lifted her hand to touch her hair, like she forgot she had it.
Her hair was down today, it was a bit curly on the tips and fell down her chest flawlessly. She would move it or flip it over her shoulder, but it would fall back in place, as if it had a purpose, a reason to be there. It fit, it was perfect, and no matter what she did, it wouldn't stop from falling over her eye and down her chest.
That's what I wanted. To fit, to belong somewhere, to have a purpose.
"Yeah, maybe up here."
I trail my fingers all the way to the top of her head.
"That's bald."
"I know." I smirked.
She smacked my hand and huffed. I smiled and held my hand up, my elbow on the table. I had no idea why I did it, to tease her? To surrender? But she did the same, and our fingers intertwined again, they fit, they had a purpose, a reason; to be with each other. To be interlocked like a puzzle with no end, a lock but no key, forever locked and closed.
I gripped her hand and felt the tightness in my throat subsiding. I was left with one thing, a thing I didn't wanna feel, a thing I only felt for one woman, my mother. A thing that made me scared.
Hope, and truly loving someone.
And that fear made me pull my hand away from hers. That fear made me stand up and say, "Sorry, I have to go." And that fear made me leave Taco Bell with Isabelle confused, and me feeling something like an idiot.
I can't tell myself Isabelle will stay, I can't say that Kyle will too. They both have their own problems and their own lives. Why do I keep holding on to people? But I couldn't ask this to anyone, I couldn't turn to anyone anymore. For once in my life, I became truly alone.