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Sin: Yes. Finn is a good guy. He and Seth have been buddies since Finn helped a band member Seth works for. Finn discovered the identity of a woman the band member had been chatting with.
“The length some guys will go to,” I say, my tone as dry as chardonnay.
Sin looks at me for a moment, then types: I thought it was pretty romantic that he would go to the trouble of searching for the woman he loved. He pulled out all the stops just to find out who she was.
I have no comeback from that. I didn’t lift a finger to look for Sin, and then tonight, I let my father get into my head, taking over all my senses and stealing my control. I’d gotten angry at her for the same thing I had done, and now, I’m paying for it.
Sin gives me a brief smile, then types: I should get rid of those pictures. I’ve wanted to transfer them to my storage cloud a thousand times, but I keep them on my phone because those are my favorite ones. It’s not as if I haven’t let him go, I just like to keep those pics. Nostalgia or some shit.
I nod in what I hope looks like sympathy.
I’ve never suffered from nostalgia... wouldn’t have the first clue what it is all about. I don’t have a picture of my parents. I don’t even have one of Gramps come to think about it. The only pics I have on my phone are work related.
I bump her shoulder and ask, “How did you two meet? Did you seduce him at a bar like me?”
She laughs.
Damn, I love that sound. It moils my insides and makes me weak at the knees.
Sin: Matt was popular. I wasn’t. Far from it. I was a senior at thirteen and skinnier than a needle. When he walked down the halls, he made my heart flutter. I thought I was in love. He didn’t know I existed until he stopped me from beating the shit out of his football buddy. Still, we didn’t talk again until I started to work for one of the big tech companies after college. Lo-and-behold, Matt worked in the department next to mine. We got to talking about high school, and poof, six months later, we were an item.
Forget the rest. I want to know how she graduated at thirteen.
“Were you bumped ahead at school or something?”
Sin: Yes, I tested out of some early grades and then one in middle school. For my senior year, I’d gotten a scholarship to Matt’s school. I was so worried I wouldn’t fit in, and I didn’t. The year I was there, I didn’t make not one friend.
She shrugs her shoulders, discounting what must have been a lonely time. I want to wrap my arms around her and take her sadness into myself. She starts typing again, preventing me from doing so.
Sin: Anyway, I graduated college at sixteen and a half. Through my college counselor, I got an internship with the government, helping to combat cyber-attacks in developing countries. I did that until just before my eighteenth birthday, when I came back to Dallas. My parents had plans to go to New Zealand to work on a farm. It had been their dream for so long, since before I was born. They love working with animals. I wanted to be with them for a few months before they left, and when they took off, I got my job a week later.
So that’s why she’s a manager at twenty-five. Shit, she’s been in the business since sixteen. I must admit, this information blows me out of the water. Sin is smart, damn smart. Humble as fuck, and so damn beautiful...
My gaze switches from her face to Matt’s shitheel mug staring up at me from the palm of my hand. My fingers curl around Sin’s phone like I want to do to his neck.
Tight and unforgiving.
“He was your first?” The question sprang from my mouth before I thought it through.
Sin: Yes.
Bless her for not giving me any static for asking about it.
“Why did he leave?”
Sin: He found someone else. I don’t know if it was something I did, or what, and I don’t care. He never apologized for standing me up, wasting my time, and my money on a wedding he had no intention of seeing through. I’m done with him.
“Yet, you still have his pictures,” I say, pointing out the obvious with a hint of jealousy on the side.
She grabs her phone, and with her tongue slightly poking from the side of her mouth, she deletes Matt’s pictures.
Sin: Now, I don’t.
With a scratchy voice she says, “I have to give up what’s bad for me.”
She puts her device back in the drawer, snapping it close. After turning her bedside lamp off, she lies on her side, facing away from me, and closes her eyes.
Before I follow suit, I lay next to her with my eyes open, wondering why I care that one day, she will delete me from her life just as easily as her ex.
