Balancing Boys (Part II): Jake and the Bar.

She held her breath as she noticed him standing in the corner, chatting up a friend. Jake was thirty feet from her, but he may as well have been breathing down her neck. She was so stupid. Why had she put herself in this position? She knew he might have been there tonight. She knew it. And she came anyway.

It's not that she didn't want to see Jake. As a matter of fact, she desperately did. Or... well, perhaps it could have best been described as a ying-yang. She had longed for months to see him, and spent those months conjuring up angry words, feelings and arguments. It took all those months to craft the perfect smack-down, and yet, thirty feet away, she couldn't take her eyes off of him. She couldn't remember what it was that she wanted to say.

"Have you tried this yet?" Dave, sitting across the table, with a mop of messy hair, asked her inquisitively. She answered his question with wandering eyes, hoping their shuffling back and forth would somehow magically keep Jake at the other side of the bar. But she was never that great at those magic tricks, anyway. Jake made his way to her table, and pulled up a chair alongside Dave. She fidgeted with her cell phone, her purse, her shirt. She pulled a few strands of hair back behind her ear, and averted her attention to the television screen in the distance: anything not to catch Jake's glance. She snarfed, quietly. How mature, she thought. This time, it wasn't Jake's immaturity that plagued her. It was her own.

Jake was playing the same game, a foot across. He, too, was shuffling his eyes so as not to meet hers. The table conversation pursued, as she sat slumped back in her chair. This time she checked her watch. Five minutes. Ten minutes. She was going to give it fifteen minutes, and leave. All of a sudden, as if Moses had parted the Red Sea, everyone at the table dispersed, leaving her and Jake sitting with no choice, but to look each other in the eyes. She knew she should have made it five minutes, and left. What an idiot.

Jake sat in silence for a minute, before pulling one of his classic snarky remarks. She rolled her eyes. This isn't what she signed up for, she thought. On the other hand, she loved Jake's banter. She'd go on and on to her girlfriends about what an ass he was, but secretly, it was Jake's insensitivity that drove her wild. Was she crazy? Had she lost it? Her attitude towards him was cold, but her body language was screaming how hot exactly he was making her. She knew she couldn't concede. That's all it ever was with Jake; a concession. They fed off each other. She knew he'd put her on the stand, tear her apart, and then mentally coddle her afterwards. She knew, because she did the same. Before the conversation furthered, she gathered her belongings, and her dignity.

"Always a pleasure, Jake," she patted him on the shoulder.
And she walked right out of the bar.