Nothing I could say would fix things. We both knew it was doomed. She’d popped my post-divorce cherry, to be blunt. That was about all there was to it. She was from a town about an hour away. Drove up on a Friday night, and now it was Sunday morning and we were enjoying coffee on my back porch. Not talking. Just looking out at the woods that surrounded my starter a-frame.

For months, after she returned home she would post little snippets of Cure songs on my FB wall. She was a bit obsessed with Friday I’m In Love. I think she had it tattooed somewhere. I can’t remember much about her now. It was over ten years ago. My first self-affirming bonk. We had nothing in common and no connection points except for some FB friend that connected us initially.

We stayed friends on FB. I didn’t really keep tabs on her, but terrible things happened in her life. Like driving by a car wreck, each month there was some major family crisis. I think her mom ended up living with her as she wandered down the halls of forgetfulness.

About four months later, it was early October. I remember because the smoke fires had begun to remind me of my loneliness. And just like that, via FB, she was on her way back to Austin. It was Friday afternoon.

“I’m not sure when I’ll get in, but I’ll call you.” The texts began around 6 pm. “The rain is horrible. I’m having a hard time driving.”

She never arrived. The texts stopped and her lit greed dot vanished. I heard from her about a week later. “I was having a hard time. You’re too sweet. And I don’t deserve it. I’m sorry, I couldn’t come.”

Okay.

I’m not sure, we might still be friends on FB.

*typo in the tattoo

Read more Short-Short Stories from John.