Iced Coffee, Iced tea, or soda? I have fresh fruits, dried meat jerky, and jelly beans.
Mike was showing me his bag full of his favorite treats as we spend the morning strolling the beach and sitting under a palm tree.
Hey Mike, I remembered you always had them on the office pantry. Some of the people I used to work with stole other people's food from the refrigerator. And one time I saw your name tagged in fruits and jerky. But they don't seem to care if it's your lunch or someone else's. They grabbed them right out of the resealable bags.
Yeah, people like my taste, they just can't help themselves. You have a very good memory of my stash Francine, even though you never recalled I gifted you a big bag of jelly beans once on valentines day. Everyone was gifting chocolate and flowers, I didn't want to confuse you so I was being unassuming. But in my head that's my way of being romantic. I only gave you red ones the most popular "very Cherry" flavor. Anyway this time I brought rainbow colored beans. My favorite are green ones. I like sour green apple, watermelon and pear.
Mike was such a nice guy. Why did I never notice it before?, His gift I think I gave them to my nephew, and he had to be restrained from eating lots of candy. He was super hyper, my sister had to throw them all out.
Uhm, Mike can I pick your brain about something? I was nervous to ask.
Yes, what's on your mind? Is it about the guy from the other night? Mike was inquisitive.
Since you're curious about it, he was my ex boyfriend. We dated for 6 years, we had the same group of friends. We go way back in highschool. We went from being friends to boyfriend and girlfriends. He was a very ambitious guy, always looking ahead, never looking back. There were days we hanged together in malls, as kids it's normal. But he was crowded by girls, they said they're just his buddies. I even went with them on parties. I saw he was being too friendly with all of the women in the party. He just dismissed me when I get jealous. He said, "Just trust me babe, there's nothing going on between me and my pals." But there's always this feeling of doubt in my head. I trusted him because I respected him. He was raised by divorced parents. They were rich and generous philanthropists, but they never cared about him. So he got a job at an early age, part timed 5 days a week, he studied Engineering. He wanted to build a tech company so after graduation he went to the states to work in a big office and trained under famous developers in California. I was happy for him. We stayed in contact for months, never forgetting to say we love each other every day and night. Until the calls became increasingly few, the I love You's became infrequent, he even hanged up during face time when he said "I got a call waiting up on my phone, Sorry Babe I need to go."
I learned from there he was cheating on me. It's his current girlfriend. He was also having other women on the side. He posts pictures of them on his social media. He has friends that are also my friends, so he tags them and they show up on my account even if were not connected. I still felt like I was tied to him even if we've been broken up for several years. He just keeps popping up in front of me.
The other night was the last straw, I got embarrassed by him. I embarrassed myself having once linked to him, "What was I thinking?!." I even ask myself how long will it have to take to forget such a jerk like him.
Mike caringly said, "You take your time, You scream, punch the wall, let it all out, until you don't have a voice or a wall to turn your frustrations and anger to. "You forgive them, and then you won't care that much anymore. The road is as long as you need to follow and tread unknown waters so in the end you come up for air. You will come out of it even stronger. You're a survivor. We all are, everyone has been hurt, that guy is no exception, he is who he is because he's chosen to be an asshole. But he also was broken at one point in his life.
As I listened to Mike's soothing voice, I felt like being with him is a special treat to me, a gift I'm only beginning to appreciate. Like his red cherry jelly beans, I'm savoring every minute of it.
Pass me that bag of jelly beans will you?, I told him, finally breaking the silence.
"Here you go", Mike said.
This is for surviving. Literally, and figuratively.
Mike held his green jelly bean, and as I look at him I held mine up into the sky.