Softail Curves III

I sat alone in my apartment.
It was Thursday night and I was home with nowhere to go and no one to talk to. My head was buzzing with noise. Dutch couldn’t really love a girl like me. I didn’t deserve him. I wasn’t cut out for that life. It was too intense and too unpredictable. I belonged back where Dutch found me. That’s what played over and over again in my head as I sat feeling sorry for myself.

It had been a week
and a half since Dutch asked me to marry him and a week since I’d had any communication with him. Those three little words, I love you, were scary enough, but marriage? I didn’t tell him no, I didn’t tell him anything. I just snuck out after he fell asleep and never looked back. Of course, I was brave enough to text him and tell him I didn’t want to see him. Very mature of me.

Now
, I was moving on. I’d convinced myself that it wasn’t meant to be. I mean really, look at Dutch. There is no way a guy like him, a guy with a perfect body and those sexy blue eyes, was going to be satisfied with an overweight girl like me. He was deluding himself and just stringing me along. One day, despite the love he professed for me and the proposal, he’d figure that out and leave me. That was my story and I was sticking to it.

My noise was more of the same
. The same fear and insecurities I’d felt several weeks before. I thought I’d gotten over all of that but I must have just pushed it to the side. Dutch’s marriage proposal brought it all front and center again but this time I wasn’t able to shake my fears and doubts so easily. No amount of reason would make them go away. The fear that seized my heart had captured me and would not let me go.

It was more than that though.
I had so much fun when I was with Dutch and his friends, Locke and Sheila, more fun and excitement than I’d ever experienced before. However, that excitement came with risk. It was scary and for a girl like me that had lived a life of conformity to be so spontaneous. Living on the edge could be exhilarating but it was also frightening. The night Dutch proposed brought that all home.

T
he proposal was sudden and spontaneous. However, that wasn’t how things were supposed to work. A guy was supposed to court you, maybe for years, before proposing. Marriage wasn’t something you jumped into without much thought or discussion. You just didn’t go out for few weeks, have amazing sex and decide it should be forever. You needed more than that to forge a life-long commitment, didn’t you?

Listen to me.
I was becoming like Dutch. I was questioning the rules. Like when I let that big biker come on to me and then teased him with Sheila. You just didn’t do stuff like that and my lack of forethought could have got Dutch killed. What pain and misery could come from agreeing to marry a man so suddenly? Especially a man I was sure couldn’t really feel for me the way he claimed.

I guess that’s what ultimately did it for me.
Living life on the edge could be fun but the risk was too much to bear. That wasn’t me. I wasn’t a biker. I was an urban professional, a conformist. I needed the safety found in my sheltered little world. I couldn’t handle life with a man that made me feel so good or a life that was that exciting. It was too much, too intense and too scary. So here I was, alone and wondering why the safety offered by my old life felt so wrong.

I went to bed early as I did every night since I left Dutch and
a life with him behind. I was depressed but I tried to tell myself it would pass. It had to, right? Life was simpler again. No wild nights, no skinny-dipping, no amazing sex, just the safety of my mundane life. I’d even patched things up with Becky, the friend that tried to tell me I was making a mistake. I endured the endless I-told-you-so lectures but mainly because they helped me believe I’d made the right choice.

The next morning found me at the coffeehouse
where Becky and I used to meet every morning before my life was derailed by the biker with the sexy blue eyes. Becky started right in with the lecture, maybe indoctrination would be a better term. “I knew you’d come around. It’s OK. We all do stupid things from time to time. The key is to realize you’ve made a mistake and correct it,” she began and I was already tuning her out.

Becky
droned on for ten minutes. I’d heard it all half a dozen times before. Becky’s judgmental tone got old pretty quick but under the surface, her words were soothing. They told me that going out with Dutch was a mistake and that I’d made the right decision to leave him. The subtle insults weren’t pleasant but I guess it was a form of penance. In any case, Becky helped reinforce the lies I’d been telling myself and made it nearly impossible to consider anything else.

“Did you hear me?” Becky asked suddenly.

“What? Sorry, I guess my mind was wandering,” I said.

“We should go out this weekend.
I want you to meet someone. He’s a nice guy, a respectful guy, who enjoys girls of your stature,” Becky told me. My stature? What the hell did that mean?

“Yeah, that sounds nice,” I replied and then looked at my phone, “I should go before I’m late.”

“Fine, I’ll call you later to discuss the details,” Becky told me. I nodded and left for work. I felt even more depressed than ever. Maybe going out would help. A night out with Becky, listening to her lecture me and meeting some metrosexual would work wonders, wouldn’t it? Sure, why not? It felt like a little slice of hell, but I’m sure I’d get back into the groove soon enough. I just had to force myself to do it.

Becky called that night and told me to meet her around seven
on Saturday at a popular club downtown, a club frequented by the young urban professionals we worked and lived amongst. A club that often reeked of fancy cigarettes, poured colorful martinis and played angst-ridden acoustic music. The place was usually filled with pretentious urbanites trying to look and act the part of the elitists they were. Foreign film this, political cause that, whatever. It was mostly inane and designed more to impress others than provide any kind of self-satisfaction or enjoyment.

I spent
all day Saturday dreading the evening but I had convinced myself I had to do it. I believed that if I went out and mingled with that crowd, I’d forget about Dutch and that life. Somehow, I’d fade back into my old life as if nothing had ever happened. I was just about ready to get up and start getting ready when someone knocked on my door. I opened it without a second thought and found Sheila standing on my doorstep.

“
Hi, stranger,” Sheila greeted me.

“What do you want?” I asked.
I didn’t mean to sound rude but I think I did anyway.

“Nice to see you too,” she replied.

“Sorry, do you want to come in?” I offered. She nodded and I invited her inside. She was in jeans, a tight t-shirt under a leather jacket and leather boots. She looked pretty, as usual, and a little sad which was unusual for Sheila. I offered her a seat on my sofa, the same one I first had sex with Dutch on, and I sat in my chair opposite her.

“I left the jacket you loaned me at Dutch’s place
,” I told her.

“I got it, thanks,” Sheila said and then she jumped right in, “So what the fuck happened?”
She wasn’t mean or challenging. In fact, it sounded like she just wanted answers.

“Look, I had fun with you guys, with Dutch, but it wasn’t for me.
I’m not like you or Dutch. I’m not spontaneous. I can’t handle the roller coaster,” I told her.

“So you got scared and
now you’re running away,” Sheila said summing it up pretty well, though I wasn’t going to admit it.

“No,
I just can’t live like you guys do. I need stability and safety. I need to know what’s going to happen without all the drama. It’s just who I am, Sheila. I’m not you. I’m not Dutch,” I explained but she wasn’t buying it.

“Bullshit.
You blossomed with Dutch. You loved it. I saw it in your eyes. You love him too. Why are you doing this? Why are you making yourself and everyone else so unhappy? We miss you. Dutch misses you. It’s just not the same, Shauna. We were like sisters. I thought we were anyway. You and Dutch...well, you were in love. It was so perfect,” she said and I thought she was about to cry.

“I can’t do it, Sheila.
I can’t live like that. Dutch lives over a garage and he treats me like...I don’t know, not like a man should treat a woman. All the fun comes at a price. That guy could have killed us. Besides, Dutch doesn’t love me. There’s no way. He needs a woman that can live like that, that’s more his type,” I rambled trying to refute what she was saying and what I was thinking in my own mind.

“What type would that be?
Skinny? Damn it, Shauna, you don’t have to do this. Don’t let the doubt win. You’re beautiful and Dutch does love you. He told me. You broke his heart when you left and all because you’re scared. Were all scared. You don’t think I worry sometimes that I’m not enough for Locke? You think that maniac with the knife didn’t shake me? You think sometimes I don’t wonder what the hell I’m doing?” Shelia said and as I began to respond, she put her hand up to stop me.

“Shauna, that’s fear and doubt.
We all feel it. But Dutch and Locke and I, well, we just don’t let it win. We don’t let what others think bother us but sometimes it still creeps in. You’re not alone. Go back to Dutch. Talk to him. Talk to me. Don’t let the bastards win,” Sheila finished and looked at me expectantly. I’d be lying if part of me wasn’t desperate to do just what she wanted. Nevertheless, I wasn’t listening to that part anymore. I hadn’t listened since I left Dutch.

“I can’t.
I don’t love Dutch. I wish him, all of you, the best but I’m where I belong. I don’t belong in Dutch’s world. I belong in this one. I’m sorry, but I need to go. I have a date,” I told Sheila and her shoulders fell. She stood up and walked to the door.

“I thought we were friends.
I guess I was as deluded as you are. Goodbye, Shauna. Good luck,” was all she said and then she left. I sat in my chair for a moment feeling an urge to go after her and tell her I was being stupid. However, I told myself those feelings were just noise and my fear and doubt were my true feelings. I had moved on and that was that, I assured myself. I got up and went to get ready and the feeling of absolute emptiness followed me as it had since the night I left Dutch.

~~~

“Shauna, this is Ashley. Ash, this is Shauna,” Becky said introducing me to the guy she wanted me to meet. Ashley was everything Dutch wasn’t. I couldn’t help but compare the two. Ashley was short, balding and pudgy without a hint of masculinity about him. His eyebrows were plucked, his hair styled just so and his clothes were perfectly tailored, grey slacks, a pink button down under a grey vest that matched his slacks and a bow tie. Sexy...not!

“Hi Shauna.
I’m so glad to meet you. Becky told me all about you,” he said. I shook his hand after he offered it, a mushy, weak handshake at best. We were at the bar awaiting service, Becky and I both in revealing, tight dresses and heels showing off the goods none of these guys would dare to even look at for fear of offending us.

“Nice to meet you too,” I said and turned towards the bar, “Can we get a little service here?”
Becky and Ashley both looked rather stunned at my outburst. The bartender came over and I ordered a beer and a shot of cinnamon whiskey, out of habit and because I needed a stiff drink. “Either of you want a shot?” I asked. Both of my companions shook their heads and Becky ordered them each a glass of chardonnay. I didn’t even realize I was acting the way I did with Dutch, Locke and Shelia.