Playboy...Bloomville. I don't know how many times I repeated those words in my head and no doubt the person in the pictures was Walter. He looked like quite the party animal, and as opposed to me, he was full of life, and definitely moving on with his tongue shoved down some girl's throat.
I felt betrayed, I tried hard to comfort myself and convince myself that he was acting up and he was driven by his guilt, but it was not working. There I was worried about him, and turns out there was no need, I couldn't wait to get to Bloomville and give him a piece of my mind.
I felt like those 13 hours were not moving fast enough, I regretted driving there, but my OCD and trust issues didn't allow me to let the movers drive halfway across the country with my stuff, unguarded.
We reached Bloomville around evening the following day, and thanks to the many pit stops, we took longer than 15 hours and as much as I was eager to begin my search for my runaway lover, it had to wait because I was exhausted. Bloomville was a beautiful city, closely similar to Amber City, only bigger, and taller with shiny buildings, in fact, it was a fully blown mega-city with the latest tech of everything. The nice thing is that this time my salary allowed me to get a nicer 2-bedroom apartment with a bigger balcony at the edge of the city overlooking a river that was dividing the city and its beautiful bridge, all thanks to the real estate agent Shirley hooked me up with. One of my favorite things about my apartment was the view of the sunset, something about its reflection through the river made sense. I imagined Walter and myself cozying up for one of our chats or simply stargazing.
The movers finally finished offloading, and all that was left was to unpack, which I had no intention of doing, as long as I had the bed and sheets unpacked, I was sorted for the night. While I was enjoying my Chinese takeout, I got this brilliant idea to stalk Walter, well, at least get the name of the place he regularly visited, and the post from earlier was my starting point. Well, my plan would have worked, if the post had not been taken down. Yes, the gossip piece written about him, the only piece of information I had, my only lead was deleted, even the page was down, it was as if it never existed. That's when all my doubts got cleared, Walter really didn't want me to know where he was, call it main character syndrome, but this guy was deliberately doing everything he could to crush any hope I had of finding him or of being with him. He knew that if anything related to him was to get published, I would use it to find him but unbeknownst to him, I had no plans of letting go, and that alone, gave me enough motivation to do some of the craziest things I never thought possible. My need to save him from himself and release him from the stronghold of that psycho he called an ex surpassed every rational bone in my body. I am not proud to admit it, but I was honestly in some 'two can play that game' mode. It was on, and he didn't even know it, in fact, nothing could have prepared him for what was about to hit him. For some reason, the whole situation became a war between me and Khalinda: she was out to make his life miserable and I was out to save him.
Despite my exhaustion, I spent the night searching for possible clubs Walter would most likely visit and narrowed it down to 12 clubs due to four things: fancy, expensive, private rooms, and sworn secrecy. If he didn't want me to find him, he would have most likely chosen a high-end private club, that didn't allow just anyone, especially nosy people and luckily for me, I knew Angela and she was a club fanatic, so, I had the perfect mentor.
With my list of clubs ready, all that was left was to get the club wardrobe, although I was not a club person, I was prepared for everything it brought and I was not going to stop until I found this man. So after a week of unpacking and finally turning my cold and empty apartment to its full glory of warmth, I was finally ready for my club excursion, and my first crazy Friday was finally here, a short blue sparkly dress, silver heels, I looked like a regular in this lifestyle, uncomfortable, yes, but killing it nonetheless. However, despite my many efforts, I had no luck in finding this man, and 8 clubs later, same luck, and absolutely no news of him. Not even a stolen picture of him chilling at a restaurant or cafe, Walter became a ghost, a myth, there were talks of him but no physical proof, as far as I knew, of course. I was also beginning to wear down honestly, weekends of uncomfortable clothes, and shoes, and having to fend off drunk perverts, it was getting old. Hence I decided to make my 5th weekend the final one, I know I had four more clubs left to visit, but it was no longer sustainable. So there I was, at this club called Le Paradis, in my deep v-line short red dress, and white heels, sitting by the bar area, looking extremely hot and sexy, pretending to drink, as I have always done. Only this time, instead of some drunk pervert, I was approached by a gorgeous hunk of a man, with brown eyes and a smile so dazzling that it knocked me off my feet.
"Hey gorgeous,", he said in a deep voice, and every neuron in my body became amplified, the only thing I could make out of those many signals being sent to my brain was, 'Damn! Hello Bloomville'.