It was a frosty Saturday morning. His call caught me by surprise. Not that I reverse-engineered his every move, but as in most cases, I let thumb rules guide me. And this was not a time he would choose to call. Something about it was off. I took it and told him I will call him back. Later. After. I have no memory of the word I had chosen, since a mild panic had caught me from within. I think he said okay and then I heard the line click.
He wasn't stupid. He obviously realized that I was with someone. Someone else. That he had been over-ridden. That's how it works. Flings don't work out and then there is always someone else. Because loneliness eats into brains like a scavenger would a carcass. So, yeah, obviously.
I was going for a movie. Morning shows are less crowded. Half the stores in the mall are closed. Good for folks like us. And I had company. New, intriguing.
He (the caller), was a keeper, I wouldn't deny that. But if things hadn't worked out after this long, I was not prepared to take a bet and invest more time and more emotion and more energy. It wasn't a nasty break up, rather just a casual falling off of things. Slowly weaning off each other so that it wouldn't hurt. It didn't hurt me, for sure. We had done this numerous times in the past. Oh, I fail to count but definitely, half a dozen times, if not less. That implied that we clearly couldn't commit.
I was in the car when I took the call, checking my hair. I kept checking my hair as I spoke to him. His voice sank. Or probably I read too much into it. I don't think we bid goodbye. That was the last time we spoke. There was no closure. This lack of closure haunted me for a long long time. And sometimes I still think about it.
What if I had called him back.
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