The Ex-Fiancé

She pranced down the hallway in her neon green short-shorts, swinging her laundry basket. The familiar potent lavender softener smell wafted through the air as she strutted beside me and made her way to the door next to mine. The smell made my eyes water, but I smiled neighborly. Her eyes seared into my skull in response. I finished locking my door as she did the opposite to hers. She fumbled for a moment, almost dropping her keys, before glaring back at me. I felt my veins freeze in response and words blurted out of me before I could even think.

“I've missed you,” I said.

Her eyes softened for just a moment before, I presume, she could think. Her petite and glittery face scrunched up into a scowl. “You sure know how to ruin someone's buzz, don't you?” She flared her nose at me like she had just smelled rotten eggs, a gesture that she's adopted lately in my presence, and rushed through her open door before slamming it closed behind her. I stared at the void she had just occupied and sighed, deflated. I could say the same for you, I thought.

I looked down and saw a lonely rainbow sock, abandoned in the rushed fury that only Lilly could exhibit. When she was truly angry, her tiny frame would shake and she would grit her teeth, ball up her soft fists, and a fire would be lit behind her caramel coffee irises. I always liked when she did that. She exuded a level of energy that only a sweet, baby-faced woman with a vendetta could. I bent over and picked the discarded sock up. I held it up to my face and got the instant headache that only the cheap, fragrant, Mexican fabric softener that she loves could give me.

That smell is probably one of the only things I did not like about her. It permeated my membranes and attacked my poor nerves with its potency. I would often go in for a kiss and have to reel backwards. She would always giggle uncontrollably and smile impishly as I writhed with allergies. She apparently enjoyed my pain. Maybe that was the first sign. Now that I look back of course its obvious, but at the time I was downright delusional. Perhaps I still am, I thought, as I shoved the sock into my bag.

I walked out of the apartment building and out onto the gum marred sidewalk. During the spring and summer, I used to love my walk to work, but now that it was the dead of winter in the oft hot South, the barren trees looked lonely and tired and the light had the sad gray tinge to it that only the toxic and polluted air of cities could have. I sighed as this observation only made me think of my ex-fiancé even more. She had always popped out in contrast during times liked this, her usually colorful outfits seeming to defy her environment. I walked the few blocks down to the red brick building. I worked in a computer repair shop as a diagnostician. I figured out what was wrong with the computers and then handed them off to others to actually repair them.

One of my friends, Beck, found my job extremely funny. He thought it was laughably ironic that I was a diagnostician when he said he could diagnose me with a few problems himself. He was a clinical psychologist at the local hospital and his pastime when we went to the bar was diagnosing all the people by watching them. It had resulted in some drinks being thrown on him by borderline chicks and threats from antisocial dudes, but it had always been so worth it for the Monday morning water-cooler stories. A few desktops and laptops were already piled up and waiting on me. I sighed, wishing I could be at the bar with Beck right now. We haven't been out in months. After Lily had broken up with me he said I was drinking too much and didn't want to enable me by encouraging getting drunk.

I plugged in the laptop and booted it up. While I watched the Windows progress bar fill up I rummaged through my bag and found Lily's sock. I stared at it and I started to feel bogged down with thoughts about her. I guess this is why Beck said I should move out of my apartment and that it would not be a good idea to still be her neighbor. I just hated the thought of leaving my home of five years. If anyone should move, it should be her since I lived there first. She had only lived there for one year. I can still remember being stuck in the elevator with her as she tried to carry one box too many. I had smiled shyly at her and she smiled back, sending a horde of butterflies loose in my stomach. When she had started to drop one of her boxes, I jumped at the chance to help her. Her freckles and blue hair enraptured me. I had never seen someone so eccentric looking or someone so bizarrely hot. I would always go out with straight-laced, take home to mama kind of girls. I spent an hour or so running tests on the computer. I looked over the cubicles and Sarah seemed to be twiddling her thumbs. I gulped nervously and did one last sweep of the room, making sure there was no one else. I sighed and brought it over to her.