I arrive alone and I immediately start scanning the faces around the room. I am looking for him. I can’t see him and I hope he won’t show up. Everything would be so much easier if he didn’t show up. But of course he walks in. My whole body tenses, and my heart starts to beat a little faster.

He is wearing a brown sweater over a white button down shirt with khakis. His blonde hair has grown out a little and it falls perfectly onto his face. He looks good and it makes me mad. I flash back to the last conversation we had. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. He said we were friends. Here we are a year later. We are not friends.

I have found my way to the back of the room near the table of refreshments. I need something to drink and my nervous hands need something to keep them occupied. Maybe it would be easier if we were all stll little kids.

He is looking over at me now. I pretend I am looking at something else, anything else but into his blue-grey eyes. I think about all that we have been through and I wonder why he can’t get over it. He acted like a little kid. He is the one that wanted to “just be friends.” He was afraid. How long will it take him to grow up? I feel the tears starting to come, just a few of the millions that i have cried over him.

I have moved on. I want to be friends. Why can’t he move on? Why do men stop maturing mentally in the first grade? I remember that I am at a social gathering, so I quickly sweep the smuged mascara away from my face and turn around. He is walking towards me. With each step he takes my heart rate grows and the past two years flash before my eyes. I remember the first time that he smiled at me; thats when it all started. I remember the first time we danced and he held me in his arms. I remember how it ended when he gave me his completley insufficient explanation of why we couldn’t be together. How dare he come talk to me.

He’s getting closer now. My heart’s beating faster and my muscles are stiff. Now I am just angry. He is almost here. “We are in public,” I tell myself. I have to keep my cool. But i just can’t forget everything. I need some sort of closure, or at least an apology.

He is two steps away. I take a deep breath. I look down and see that my napkin has been torn to shreds. And then he walks past me.

Its time to go. I walk to my car, feeling defeated, and a voice in my head tells me, “This is what you wanted, right?.”