The counter is still ticking.

Ive thought a lot about that counter since the “discovery”.

I have a playlist with two songs on it.  The polar opposites of those songs is ironic and the irony isn’t lost with me.

It was June 26, 2006 when the email came.  It was from a now defunct site called Yahoo 360. Yes my emails go back over 10 years. A lifetime for some, a blip on the radar for others.

The internet made the world smaller.

It made my world smaller still, a reminder that all paths seemed to lead back to him, even when I wasn’t looking for him. I know better now, but a woman in denial can make anything sound good.

Irony is a bitch though and coincidence doesn’t exist. LaLa worked with “sunshine”. Even in these last days, those roads keep turning in that direction. Now I have to go off road.

The message was simple. Yahoo 360 wanted me to connect to Gei. It took a moment to figure it out but when I clicked the lick and started reading it was apparent. It was him. By this time I’d been exposed to his prose for almost a decade, like my own style, it was unmistakable.

His story then was he didn’t mean to send me the message.

Well I suppose I don’t mean what comes next either.

I know that I have to to something what that is yet I don’t know.

My hope is that I will just watch the clock run down, or even better get weary of watching the clock but I think I know me well enough to know, that won’t be exactly how it goes.

The anger has given me new focus. I hate that it does.

It puts me right back in that space where all roads lead to him and are led by him. I am the monster he created and I still operate as such.

Motivation infinity existed to get this ass in gear and nothing maintained the momentum until the clock started.

Something.

I do not want him back. That vulnerability to him cannot exist any longer. Mambo number 5 is just a song and I am not singing. We’ve had what we were ever gonna have, no matter how many times life keeps thrusting us back into each other’s consciousness.

I don’t want to hurt her. If he’s genuine with her in a way he stopped being with me years ago why would I alter that? He might be the person for her that I always wanted him to be for me. I am not evil enough to destroy that, although the evil is strong in me at times.

I don’t want to stop the wedding.  It would deliver a freedom I’ve only dreamed possible and freedom I need.

I want an apology, but one would be useless. I would forever doubt the sincerity, apologies should be offered not extracted and an apology changes nothing.

An apology doesn’t repair me. An apology doesn’t turn back time. And apology is confirmation that I wasn’t crazy, but it might make me crazy in a different manner.

So I have to figure out what I want.

In the next 186 days.

Aphrodite Brown