40Ash
Karla:Hi
I stared at her words as if trying to decide if Karla had truly texted me or if I was having an extremely bad hallucination. How did she get my number?
Karla:Sorry to text so late. But you’ve been on my mind for a while.
I’d been on her mind? The same way she’d been on mine since I walked out of her bookshop?
Karla:Your coworker Chase stopped by the bookstore today. We talked for a bit, and he gave me your number.
Chase gave her my number. I’d have to give him a piece of my mind the next time I saw him for interfering in my life. Or thank him. I wasn’t sure exactly which yet.
Ash:I’m sorry that he bothered you.
Karla:I’m not.
I read those two words at least ten times. It was wild to me that it had been years, and somehow that woman still made my heart skip from the simplest words.
Karla:I’d like to formally invite you over to my place so I can make you a “thank you for saving my grandmother” dinner.
Ash:You don’t have to do that.
Karla:I know. So when are you free for dinner?
I smiled at the phone before texting her that I was available the upcoming Saturday evening.
Karla:It’s a date. You can meet me at the bookshop, around six. Do you like spicy food?
Ash:I do.
Karla:Good! There’s something fun I have planned, but it only works if you like spicy food.
Ash:Would you like me to bring anything?
Karla:How about drinks and dessert?
Ash:Sounds good.
Karla:OK, great. Sorry for texting so late and keeping you up. Have a good night.
I texted her good night, but I wasn’t sorry for Karla keeping me up. Still, it was odd to have a piece of my past come back to me. I’d spent the last nine years of my life running away from my previous chapters. I’d been wearing a mask, pretending to the world that I was OK.
IwasOK. At least that was what I told myself each day. I was fine.
My life was good. I had good friends. I was in great shape. I played basketball. I saved lives. I called my mother every Sunday to catch up. Overall, I didn’t have much to complain or worry about. I did a good job of keeping myself busy so I couldn’t overthink things.
Then I ran into her. Now my mind was doing somersaultsthinking about Karla and our past together. Unfortunately, when I thought about Karla, I thought about my father and my brother, too.
I wished I could think about her without them being intertwined with all my thoughts, but it was nearly impossible. I met Karla during the hardest times of my life, the same way I came into her life during her darkest days. I couldn’t recall the good with her without feeling heavy emotions about the bad that I experienced too.
I shouldn’t have agreed to even hang out with Karla again, but I felt the same pull toward her that I did when we were kids and I saw her in the cemetery. It was like a magnetic pull that she had over me, and now that she had reappeared in my life, I couldn’t help but want... more. I’d been clean from Karla and the memory of her for nine years. I detoxed from our former connection.
Yet from seeing her a few times now, my mind relapsed.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her, which meant I couldn’t stop thinking about them.
And I couldn’t think about them.
