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I snort. “It’s been twenty years, Nick. Of course, I’ve changed.”
“Sometimes I don’t feel like it’s been that long,” he murmurs and sighs before adding, “I missed you, Nikki.”
I wish I could use the clichés and say the sincerity in his voice surprises me, and the way he looks at me unarms me. But, no. The look he gives me is dangerous, even though his voice is soft. He’s not safe, and it only proves what I know. So many things have changed, so much time has passed. We’re not the same people anymore. Even though he still makes my heart race after all these years, he cannot feel the same thing for me. I’m too broken for him to fix, and I’m not even sure if I want to be fixed. “We were just kids, then,” I finally murmur softly.
“Will you say it didn’t mean anything?”
“We wanted it to mean something at that time. It was childish, easy, stupid.”
“I didn’t sh-” he changed his word of choice, “I didn’t do what I did because it wasn’t real!” he roars. After getting some weird looks from other tables, he lowers his voice. “Nothing between us was easy. Not now and definitely not then. It may have been childish, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fucking real.”
I shrug, trying not to let hope bloom inside me with his words. “Maybe.”
“It meant everything to me, Nikki. You were my first love, everything I could think of, everything I wanted to have,” he raises his voice with passion and maybe anger.
I considered acting indifferent, maybe I would if I was ten years younger. At the age of thirty-five, playing games come off silly and a waste of energy, so I go with the truth. “You were my first love, too. My first of everything and then, you left me when I needed you most, or that was what I thought. I didn’t know what you did for me.”
“I wasn’t your first everything,” he says. His voice is so dark, so sinister it chills my bones.
I know what he means, but I don’t want to talk about what happened to me. I want to talk about why he’s here, what happened to him, and what he wants from me. I want to know if I should stop the feelings he awakens in me or let them free to bloom without any restriction and fear.
“When did you get out of jail?” I ask just to change the topic.
“Five years ago.”
“And why did you show up now?”
“I was too angry to find you. When I decided to find you, it wasn’t so easy to locate you.”
I nod. I can understand why he feels angry. Frowning, I ask my next question, “So you were looking for me all this time?”
“Yes, and I’ve also been trying to adapt to freedom. I opened up my own garage, fixing cars and shit. Since I found you six months ago-”
“You found me six months ago?” I interrupt him.
“Yes. I’ve been following you since then,” he says. His voice is unapologetic.
Shaking my head, I try to absorb his words. He’s been around all those times. And when I think about it, I know there were small signs, but they were so small I could easily ignore them. The constant feeling of being watched should’ve been an alert, but I just blamed my paranoia. Now, I know the reason behind it.
“Have you ever been married?” he asks like he hasn’t just admitted his stalkerish behavior.
I snort. “Marriage is the last thing I can think of.”
“Any boyfriends?”
I look at him sharply, trying to make him understand that it’s not his business, but he keeps his persistent gaze at me. “I had boyfriends… lots of them… whenever I need a man.”
“For sex? Didn’t you love anyone?”
“I love myself, isn’t that enough? Also, I didn’t even think I could have sex, but I do, and I’m not gonna complain about other stuff. I’m happy.”
He shakes his head. “No. No, you’re not happy. You’re still living in the past, what has happened to you. Just like I didn’t forget any of it.”
I stare at him for a second before murmuring, “It doesn’t matter now.”
“It does. It’s all my life is about,” he snaps.
It’s my time to raise my voice. “It shouldn’t have been. It was my problem, you should have steered clear of it.”
