Don't You Think That I'm A Runner?

Just A Random Guy

We sat out on my balcony together until everyone left. We didn't drink anything else except for water, sobering up as people came to tell me bye on their way out. And then we had a talk. We decided that we wanted to start spending time together and see how things worked themselves out. Then we agreed not to talk about it again. We wanted to let whatever happened happen and not force anything.

I told him that I trusted him as a friend, but I wasn't sure if I trusted him enough to be in a relationship with him again. I was scared to death to open myself up completely to him again after what happened the first time. If he ran out on me out of nowhere before, he could do it again. And I didn't think I could go through it a second time. While I wanted so badly to let the past go and trust him completely again, I now had it engraved in the back of my mind that he was a runner. He could easily get bored or have a sudden change of heart and run away again. I didn't know if I wanted to take that risk. I had to protect myself this time.

Mark told me that spending time away from me and being in a relationship with someone else showed him just how much he wanted to be with me. Any "what if's" he thought he had before were gone now. But he didn't want to rush into being serious again like we had the first time. He wanted us to get to "re-know" each other after our time apart. He was scared that one of us might have changed. He wanted to be careful and slowly build up to a relationship this time. He said he couldn't handle failing at us again.

Plus, neither one of us was ready to start a new relationship yet. We had both just gotten out of long term relationships. I was new to living by myself and enjoying my own company. He was finally free to travel where ever he wanted whenever he wanted again. We had both built ourselves separate lives outside of each other, and we didn't want to lose that. So we didn't have any expectations. It just was what it was.

We made sure to respect each other's space worked on completely trusting each other with no questions. Which is amazingly hard to do with anyone in general, let alone with ex's who have a rough past. But it was worth it to us. If either of us didn't realistically see a future together, then we wouldn't be trying. But this felt way too big to let go of.

We also made sure to work on total honesty and being up front. If one of us felt uncomfortable or weird about something, we vocalized it right away. And we were totally honest with our answers and our feelings, even if it was something the other might not want to hear. We even discussed going to pre-marriage classes. We had never seriously talked about marriage, but by trying this again, it sort of went without saying that that's where it was headed in the future. And we were both curious to see what we could learn from those classes, married or not. But it was only a thought and we didn't think we really needed it at the time.

I made sure to spend more time with my friends and continue to work on building those relationships back up. Mark and I were careful not to be up each other's asses all the time. I continued to work full time and I started running and also doing a ton of DIY projects around my place.

Mark was busy with the guys working on their next album. Sometimes he would bring me into the studio to show me something he wrote that was inspired by me or our history. It actually helped things between us when I was able to see that our breakup had taken a toll on him too. When he got another girlfriend so fast after he dumped, it had made it seem like he was completely over me and didn't care at all. Hearing his side of it in the form of lyrics he wrote was a good way for me to see how he felt.

We started to realize that we had changed in our time apart. But in good ways. We both had new perspectives on life and everything in it. We had both matured and learned a lot of important life lessons. We had grown. I think we had needed to.

At first, we tried to keep our situation a secret. We didn't want to jump the gun and tell anyone we were back together or "talking" again. So we claimed we were just friends and on good terms again. And we tried to act like it. But it was hard. There were times that some of the guys caught me sitting on Mark's lap or caught Mark playing with my hair and whispering something into my ear. No one said anything though, they usually just rolled their eyes and shook their heads. I didn't really care if they assumed anything. I kind of liked having our own little secret.

But our privacy was blown one night due to alcohol and jealously. We randomly decided to go out to a club for a change. We hadn't gotten drunk together in forever because we were both so busy with our own things. It had been even longer since we had been out to a bar of any kind. So we were pumped up about it and immediately started taking shot after shot, seeing how much we could handle.

We were about 6 shots and 3 beers in when I noticed a good looking guy at the opposite side of the bar checking me out. When Mark got up to go to the bathroom, I drunkenly thought it would be fun to do a shot with the stranger. I had no intention of flirting with him or anything like that. When I get drunk I just turn into a social butterfly and become best friends with everyone. I ordered two shots from the bartender.

The bartender sat the shots down in front of me just as Mark returned and sat back down. He automatically went to take one of them, assuming it was for him. I stopped him.

"What, that's not for me?" He laughed.

"No," I replied.

"Really?" He raised his eyebrows a bit. He obviously thought I was joking.

"Yeah, I'm gonna bring it over to this guy and do a shot with him."

He just stared at me for a second and his jaw set in anger. "Who?"

I shrugged, "Just a random guy."

"Show him to me."

I only rolled my eyes in response. I figured he was just being pissy because he was drunk. I grabbed the shots and headed over to the other side of the bar. I asked the dude if he wanted to take a shot with me and I sat down next to him as we clinked our shot-glasses together and downed the liquor. I looked back across the bar at Mark. He was glaring at me like he was going to kill me.

"Do you want to dance?" the dude asked.

Like any basic white girl, I also loved dancing when I was drunk. I accepted and followed him out to the dance floor. I didn't grind on him and barely even touched him, but the whole time I was dancing I could feel Mark's stare. I kept glancing over to where he was sitting at the bar and saw that he didn't take his eyes off of me once. I only danced for one song and then I slipped away from the crowd and went back to re-join Mark.

"Are you serious?" He pointed to the dude who was still out on the dance floor. He was fucking pissed.

"Are you honestly mad?"

"What do you think?"

"What, I'm not allowed to take a shot and dance with someone?"

He shook his head and laughed bitterly like he didn't believe that I had just done that. The fact that he was getting shitty with me made me get pissed at him. I gave him a look, daring him to say something else.

When he didn't, I said, "We aren't in a relationship, Mark. You can't tell me what I can and can't do. Isn't that the whole point of this thing? No labels? No rules?"

He laughed again with a scoff and reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. He got cash out and set it on the bar. And then he looked at me and said, "This isn't going to work." He walked past me and to the door.