Letting go

A Story by b.platte

Never get drunk around your ex when you're upset about another girl moving across the country... one-shot.

I formed a thought and it rolled away onto the very tip of my tongue.

"But I cheated on you with her. I really liked her."

Word vomit. It slipped out in a slur of regrettable words and I couldn't even control my hand flying up to my mouth. S**t.

"Well that means you are definitely not ready for a relationship." That's what she said before she started to walk away. I was drunk. I didn't know if she was mad or trying to shake off the awkward tension I blanketed over us with those stupid words.

I threw my arm out, only hoping it would make contact. It did. I gripped her arm as gently as the liquor pumping through my veins would allow.

"Wait. I didn't mean-"

She turned around so quickly, it even made me dizzy. Maybe that's why she looked the way she did. Was she seeing stars too? Or simply seeing red.

"Save it. It's true, so you meant it. I should have known. That f*****g night at the party... the one night you didn't ask me to stay over. I saw the way you two were looking at each other from across the room. And here I thought I was the one who hurt you by leaving."

She spoke so many words I was still trying to process them all when she seethed and finally shook her arm out of my grasp.

I let her go. She let me go.