When Your One Night Stand Is Something More

They were your something, even though there was no label, even though it was just a fling, a hook up that left you empty. Your hands seemed heavier yet emptier, just like your heart. Your mind had been misplaced and your life flipped upside down.

You’ve lost a lover, a nobody, a somebody.

You knew from the start it wasn’t serious, you knew it was a risk, but one look at those blue eyes and sure as hell anyone would tell you it was a risk worth taking.

That first shot at the bar, the small shrug he gave you when you asked him what he was playing, the first time he laughed at your corny jokes…. you remember the firsts even though they weren’t the first time they’d ever happened to you; it’s just that they all happened with him, and with him even the firsts felt different. You talked about anything and everything; about fruity drinks, philosophy, his grandfather’s time in the War, your mother’s skills in the kitchen, and his fear of death. He took you home and you invited him to keep the party going upstairs. You weren’t one to ditch your friends for a guy, but the tingle his touch gave you, like electricity up your spine, made you think it was worth a shot.

“Sorry for the mess,” you’d said, but it was perfectly messy, messy enough for him to ask you what you were longing to tell him. “So you’re an artist, I see?” And he admired your painting, and your loose pages of writing on your desk, and anything that lay around worth admiring, until all that was left to admire was your figure against the dimmed kitchen lights. A bottle of wine later and he did more than admire it in the bedroom.

It felt like art, it felt like love.

You hadn’t felt this alive since you were with your ex, who broke your heart, and now it finally felt like the pieces were momentarily together. He held you in his arms as you continued where you had left off at the bar, and talked until your eyelids dropped and you felt his bearded chin against your forehead before dozing off.

A ray of light and a chill woke you up. You pushed yourself up against the bed’s headboard as you covered yourself in what was in your reach of white sheets. An empty bed, a sad girl, a pathetic exit. “Stay,” you whispered as he pulled up his pants. He just smiled as you rolled around the bed with a putty face. “I got to go, I’ll call you later, thanks for everything.” But he never did. So you frequented the bar where you met, ordered the same drink, then a similar drink the following nights, but he never came, and you never left with anyone else. He was nothing though it felt like he was somebody, not somebody, maybe a potential somebody. So you grew angry and trusted less and less, and gave up on the idea of starting something new with another potential somebody. You ignored the chills their touch gave you, and the twinkle in their blue eyes.

You lost a lover, a one-night stand lover, because you thought he’d give you more than he would.

Your hopes were too high, they’d say, you’re too illusory, they’d repeat, just fuck another guy, they’d recommend, but you swore that with him it was different, but I guess you’ll never know for sure now if it was different for him too.