A Missed Opportunity

58

✧𝙽𝚘𝚊𝚑✧

I'm not a good person. I lie. I'm arrogant. Swear more than I should. Rude, disrespectful, bossy—Should I go on? I can. I don't even know what to say to this poor girl who thinks she loves a bad person. So, I just...don't say anything.

I mean—I say some things. I ask her how she likes her eggs in the morning even though I know that already. I ask if she'd like some coffee with it which I also know she would. But that's all I can come up with. When I run out of questions that I already know the answers to, I stop talking. And she won't even meet my eyes because she's embarrassed.

I don't know how I'm supposed to say it back and mean it. This little part of me—the one that's stuck with me throughout my bad years, my truly awful years, and the slightly better ones—says I can't say it back. It says she doesn't love me, she loves this version of me that I've shown her. The version of me I want to be. My version of that blonde haired blue eyed guy that she could grow to love.

So, that part reasons that I just can't say it back because she didn't really say it to me. I mean, she didn't. She said it to the guy who holds her after sex. The one who watches movies with her before bed, who's got dinner ready by the time she's home, who's great with her perfect little boy.

My mind races with questions and terrible answers. It berates me for past mistakes and mistakes I haven't made yet but will definitely make because those are the only guarantees I can ever make. It feels like too much is happening up there, and it's only a matter of time before I slip.

I make mistakes. All day—I make mistakes because my mind just won't stop running.

It starts before I've even started the day. While I'm asking Kiara about those eggs, I touch the pan sat on the burner. It stings the tip of my finger and the girl who thinks she loves me rushes right over and directs me to hold it under a cold stream of water for a few seconds.

Then the coffee. While I'm asking her if she wants any coffee before she leaves for work, I'm pouring my own cup. Before I know it, the sound of liquid dropping onto the floor makes me stop and I look down at the puddle on the counter—overflowing onto the floor because I miss my coffee mug somehow.

She helps me clean that up too.

And—Thank God she takes Cameron to school this morning because I run a red light on my way to work and flashing lights flag me down until I pull over on the curb. I'm asked to get out of the car and walk along a line for the officer. Asked to follow his finger too before he lets me go with a nice big ticket for running the light. And for speeding because he followed me long enough for that one too.

That's not even the end of it. I still have the whole day ahead of me. A whole day filled with fuck ups. Fuck up after fuck up until I'm sent home and told to get some goddamn sleep or something. It's fine though, because it was only two hours earlier than normal. I'll see it on my paycheck, but that's okay too.

Kiara told me I'm clumsy when my guard is down. She laughed while she said it, but I just smiled and responded with something stupid to tease her. But really, it wasn't funny. Not to me. She's free to laugh about it all she'd like, but it's not funny.

I'm not clumsy like she says. I just don't think. And I do it when my guard is down and I'm preoccupied with something. Something like the pretty girl who won't take her eyes off me. Or like the thoughts telling me in detail how much of a screw up I am constantly.

I'm told to go home, but that's not actually where I go. I sort of keep driving past my building. Kiara texts me sometime during that drive to tell me she's going to pick Cameron up from school today since he said something about wanting to see her office once. I never respond to that because by the time I stop driving to check that message, it's already been an hour since she sent it and she's probably already picked him up.