Out in the alley, I tossed the bag of rotten food into the dumpster and dusted my hands off. Walking back, I didn’t notice the man coming up to me until he spoke.
“Maggie? Maggie. It is you.” I stopped in my tracks and looked up. His face was familiar, but for some reason, it didn’t register for several seconds.
“Paul?”
Yes, that was him. That was definitely him. He looked exactly the same, it was a little bit scary. I knew by other people’s standards he was handsome, but after our relationship, I just saw the man I had to run away from when I looked at him.
“Maggie, hey. It’s been a long time.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I was just in the neighborhood,” he said. A lie.
“No way,” I said.
“I…I know. You're right. I wasn’t in the neighborhood. I’m here because I knew that you lived here, and I was hoping to run into you.”
“That’s weird Paul. I’m not comfortable with that.”
“Weird? Is this the way you wanted the first conversation between us to go after, whoa, how long has it been? It's been years. Don’t you want to catch up?” he said. He was being chatty and friendly, but I knew better than to buy that act from him.
“No. I don’t. What are you doing here?” I crossed my arms. His stance changed. Looking anywhere but me, he started to look a little ashamed.
“I needed to see you. I wanted to speak to you lately. I didn’t know the best way to get a hold of you, so I decided to look for you.”
“Yeah, you did. Now if you don’t mind, please don’t come here again.”
“Maggie, please. I just wanted to talk to you. Can I come to your apartment so we can chat?”
“Paul do you not see how strange this is? I don’t want you in my apartment.”
“Okay. Okay, I understand. Well, I brought this I thought you might want to have it back.” He held an envelope out to me. I watched him suspiciously before finally taking it.
“If this is a letter, I’m throwing this in the trash.” He shrugged his shoulders, looking relaxed. His blond hair was tousled and his eyes, blue, were clear, and dare I say friendly. I knew he was the furthest thing from a friend but standing there, he came off as especially non-threatening.
“It’s yours so you can do what you want with it.”
I frowned at him. “This is weird Paul.
Why are you outside my building? What do you want?”
“I know this looks weird and I know that telling me to fuck off should be a natural response to me right now for you. I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I never got to say that when we were together and I know I wasn’t a good boyfriend. It took some time to get that through my thick skull but I know better now.”
I had a defense system in place for Paul now. He had no power over me so he didn’t scare me, but I didn’t know who this new, gentle, self-effacing guy was and what he wanted with me.
“Yeah, and?” I spat.
“And, I want you to know that if you let me, I can show you how different I am.”
“So that what can happen?”
He shrugged. “Whatever you want.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
Another shrug. “Today’s not the right time to expect a reply from you but I hope you'll want to talk sometime. Have a good day.”
I stood there like an idiot as he disappeared. What the hell. What was he talking about? Who was that man because it wasn’t the Paul I knew.