“I’m a bad boy,” he said, looking away into the distance. “You should stay away from me. I’m no good for you.”
“Oh. Okay, then,” she said, and began walking off.
Startled, he practically jogged after her, grabbing her arm. “Wait, where are you going?”
“You said I should stay away from you,” she answered, confused. He had been there for that part, she was sure of it.
“I didn’t really mean it!” he said.
“Then why did you say it?”
He blinked. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve never really thought about it. If I had to, though…”
He stood for a few moments, chin cupped in his hand, eyes wandering the ground in front of him, skipping from discarded penny to stuck gum to a thin weed growing from a thinner cracked. She waited patiently.
“I guess I’m afraid of commitment,” he said. “Spending a lifetime, or even just years with someone? It freaks me out just thinking about it.”
“So, you don’t even want to date me?”
“No, I do!” he said, throwing out his hands. “I desperately need someone in my life who I can love and will love me back. But…what if I fuck it up?”
She shrugged. “What if you don’t?”
“But what if I do?”
“Okay, but…what if you do but it’s not that bad and it can be fixed?”
“Oh, hmm,” he said, rubbing the back of this head. “I never thought about that before.”
The two of them stood in the early evening, next to the vending machines, moving awkwardly to the side when businessman on his way home wanted to get a Hershey bar.
“Look,” he said finally. “This has been great, but I think it’s clear that before I start a relationship, with you or anyone, I need to start therapy. Dig down into what’s going on inside me. Be comfortable with myself.”
“Agreed,” she said. “I go to therapy myself, it’s a great way to understand your own actions before you commit to them.”
“Maybe I’ll see you in a year or two?”
“Yeah, let me know!”
And the two of them shared a firm, but polite, handshake and went their separate ways.
High Urban Fantasy Jazz 