Marathon Man

Soundtrack: Handsome Boy Modeling School Station on Pandora

I train long and hard at the gym until I'm completely smoked.
One of the guys asks how I'm handling the separation/divorce.
I tell him it's fine.
He says with a slight pause and with look that tells me he's trying to read my face for any hint of expected human emotion....that I don't seem to miss her.
I tell him, I don't let myself think about that room in my mind. I tell him that I know it was the right decision and that it just wasn't for me.
I wasn't the man for her and she was definitely not the woman for me.
I tell him I don't know that I believe there is "one" person for someone like me.
I also tell him that freedom feels amazing after two years of trying to be and become this other person I am clearly not ready to be nor may ever become.

I sit and feel peace. There is no more that I have to give in sweat and effort on this night.

I leave and head to her place driving through the cold night air.
She's made dinner and we eat and relax.
I shower and she watches me.
We can't have sex b/c it's that time of the month but she tells me what she wants to do as soon as we can. It's a nicer shower and house than I've ever owned or lived in.

We climb into bed and we talk about nothing and everything while music plays.
The stripper from out of town texts me as does the fresh-faced girl wantingto lock up  my following weekend but I don't know this so I don't respond.
She misread a text I sent earlier and she makes a joke about me cheating.
I fight back the urge to slap her and hide it with a smile that I think hides my irritation.
We're less than two weeks into this and there it is.
The old familiar......that moment....taking me back to so many moments, fights, relationships, and arguments......I could jump out of a fuckin' window.
The moment passes I know that she's just not adept at hiding her emotions and interior monologue as I have trained myself over years of womanizing with girls of different cultures, ages, background, occupations et cetera.

I don't get **** but the week of training and work and being an adult sends me to Nemo's dreamland for 8 hours of sleep.
I don't recall my dreams.

I wake up to the cold morning light with a pretty, dark-haired girl sleeping soundly next to me.
She slowly stirs and sighs with a stretch, kisses me, and says she always feels safe by my side, says I  make her feel like a woman. Her small hands touch my face and she says she wishes I didn't have to leave. I kiss her the way a man should kiss a woman and run my fingres through her long, dark hair as her face tells me she's savoring my touch.
I kiss her once more with that feeling I know better than most....the feeling that I know not from whence I shall return as there are other girls to ravish and ravage. I have long jaunts into the darkness and across the red sea which I must doggedly pursue before my wanderlust will allow rest for your humble narrator.

Good luck and happy hunting.
      - Yrs. in Christ