She’s becoming my obsession. She shouldn’t be, I have a girlfriend but I guess that’s what makes it an obsession. It doesn’t matter though I can’t keep Enne out of my mind. I’ll take a moment in my car in the morning before work and tell myself “not today.” That determination crumbles the second I see her. I’ll say hi and she politely returns the gesture but nothing more. Nowhere near the way we used to talk. Not even before we became close. I just listen to her most days now and try not to get caught staring.
It’s harder to feed the obsession lately though. She doesn’t say much anymore to anyone. Its like she’s hollow or hidden. This makes it worse for me as I’m left to reminisce and all of those feelings come rushing back. The way she smiled. The way she laughed.
I wasn’t even supposed to be talking to her. I put her on off limits. When I met Bernie I told myself I was going to be good for once. I was going to dedicate myself to her and give it everything I had. No more casual flirting with other girls. No more trying to see how far I could take a conversation. Bernie was the only one I needed.
To this point Enne and I had only had a few lightly flirtatious conversations. I complimented her wardrobe and she would call me the fashion police with a devilish smile. She would tell me a certain color looked good on me and I would ask her how long she’s been paying attention. We would both get a cursory laugh and go about our business. But when I met Bernie and my attention on her waned she noticed. She would make it a point to seek me out and make small talk. She would wait for me to leave at the end of the day and walk out with me or if I wasn’t leaving she would wait around and poke and prod me into conversation.
Slowly, all of the time spent together made me want more of her. She was like a subliminal message telling me I needed her around. She was gorgeous, playful, smart and could keep my interest better than anyone I had ever known.
Bernie was like that as well, but she had moved eight hours south to LA for school. We saw each other every weekend but she was beginning to get possessive. Whenever I would mention one of my female friends she would make a face as if she had just sucked on a lemon and interrupt to change the subject. She would occasionally ask me why I was still friends with these other girls and tell me to stop talking to them because she didn’t like them. Enne pressing for my attention just made things more chaotic.
“So, do you talk with any girls you work with?” Bernie would ask me.
“Well not outside of normal courtesy. I don’t flat out ignore them when they talk directly to me but I don’t bring anything up to engage a conversation in.” I’d smile at the end and make eye contact as if it was a casual response and not something I’d over thought. I wanted to seem natural as the less suspicious she was the better our weekends together were. Of course it was a lie, all of it. I did try to do what I said but I couldn’t resist Enne.
I had only known Bernie a few months before she had to leave for school. We promised that one of us would drive to see the other every second weekend. We were doing really well despite the distance. It had been a month since she left and we had only seen each other the one weekend. It was my turn to drive down the next day so I was trying to get as much work done as possible so I could leave early. Enne had seemed to start noticing that I was paying less attention to her and was loitering around the foyer waiting to see when I would go. When she figured I wasn’t leaving she came back in and said she couldn’t find her phone.
“No, sorry. I haven’t seen it.” I told her as I looked under my desk as if it had magically fallen there somehow. I was courteous but uninviting as I had been with her for the past couple of months. She stood at the desk next to mine for a moment before whipping her purse around and muttering to herself. “Let me check in here one more time. I’m going to feel so stupid if…” She sighed. I don’t know if she thought she was convincing or not but it was cute watching her try, I caught myself staring and pulled it in before she noticed. I dove back into my work and listened as she groaned while pulling her phone out of her purse like a rabbit from a top hat.
“I’m sorry I came in and bothered you. I can be such a ditz sometimes.”
“No problem,” I responded without looking in her direction.
“So,” she began as her ploy didn’t seem to get me as interested in her as she wanted. She paused as if she was trying to think of something to say. “What’re you hanging around so late for? Don’t want to go home?” She flashed one of her most catching attributes with the question, a wide smirk. Her smile was gorgeous but when she crooked the corner of her lip up into a smirk you couldn’t help but engage her. She drew you in and you couldn’t help yourself.
I looked up at her smirking down at me still. It’s as if she was saying “Well, what do you got? Give me your best comeback.” “No, not that.” I smiled but felt it necessary to respond further. I couldn’t just leave it at that. Her smirk now fading to a closed lip smile. Her lips are perfect. “I was just in the mindset to finish this and I didn’t want to break it.” “Oh?” she continued to pull the rope attached to my tongue. “Why not just hurry home and think about it on the way? I think much better at home than this stuffy office.”
“I wanted to relax tonight. When I get home I lik everything to be done. Plus I wouldn’t be able to think in the car. I like to sing along to the radio.” The last part I didn’t mean to say, it just kind of slipped out. I didn’t want to make this a friendly conversation just an explanation, but she forced me to engage her with her charm.
The look on her face was of amazement. “You sing? Oh my god you have to sing for me now!” I did a face palm in my head. “Now? I can’t now. There’s no music.” She whipped her phone out of her purse and grinned as she shook it. “But we’re in a library,” I quickly responded. “Plus I only sing in the car or alone. It’s not like I’m any good or anything.” She put her phone away and looked at me with her smile now beaming. “Well you have to.” “Why?” I wondered, genuinely interested in why she was so hell bent on getting me to sing.
“Because” she responded. “My dad used to sing to my sister and I when we were little. We would get so excited when a fun song came on the radio.” She turned away just a little and stared out towards the window. Her smile dimmed a bit as she spoke and reminisced of her dad when she was little. “Then when a slow song came on that he liked my sister and I would often just listen to him serenade our mom or us. I miss that.” She looked back to me, vulnerable and so beautiful right at that moment.
“But I’m really not any good. I just like to do it for me.” I tried to say this in the nicest way possible. “I don’t care” her face lit up again at the continued challenge of getting me to do what she wanted. “You have to. My dad wasn’t good either. It was about the fun. Joe won’t sing, ever, so you have to.” My expression changed from wonder to confused, “who’s Joe?” “Joe is my fiance” she said.
“Oh, I didn’t know you had a fiance.”
“Why would you” she said, the smirk appearing again. “Yeah, I guess if I never asked how would I know?” I looked down, almost embarrassed that I asked at all. I tried another tactic to get out of the singing for her, “but when would I even be able to sing?”
“I guess you’ll have to take me somewhere for lunch sometime if you only do it in your car.” She popped up from leaning on the desk. “Next week” she grinned.
Its as if she had been planning this the whole time. I sat amazed and dizzy from her getting me to take her out to lunch without even knowing it. She waved as she left and pranced out triumphantly. I looked down at my desk and thought to myself “fuck…” I decided to put it off until tomorrow and head home. I didn’t want to tell her I was going to see my girlfriend in LA this weekend. Enne doesn’t know about her and I was starting to think I wanted to keep it that way.
for another time: I’ve always thought that a certain someone doesn’t exist that makes you forget about everyone else. That it was a character flaw of people, me included, that always had that wandering eye and no woman was good enough to keep its gaze. I needed to try to focus on someone who deserved it. I needed to put effort into making them the only one I saw, but then I met you. I met you and I didn’t have to try anymore.I had
A Hopeless Romantic, Stirred 