Butterflies and Lies

...Phil calls and an involuntary smile fills up my face. I can’t get used to his croaky voice. It makes me nervous and I like it. “So what’s up?” I ask. He says he wants to see me, he’s off work. I too am home. “Can I come?”, he asks, “I have some wine and I miss seeing you laugh so sheepishly”. Yes, wine gets me drunk. I have been a teetotaler all my life until Phil happened, a month ago. He comes and soon we are seated on the floor chatting and teasing. He draws me in for a kiss. I am complaisant this time. I respond in kind and we get lost in a shameless hearty moment until he feels his phone ring in his pocket.

Damn! It’s been a 5-year hiatus from physical intimacy and I feel heat surging through my body. I could scream but as for Phil… I 100% recommend.

I let him answer and on getting his phone out, oh whoop! The balloons slip out too. I cock my eyebrows, in a quizzical stare and he gives me the smug smile back.

It’s her I could tell and he was not hiding it. I been knew, anyway. He comes back to me from the call with a poker face on and the awkwardness in the room gets so dense I could touch it. “This is not nice,” I tell him to break the awful quiet. He quickly nods in agreement and jumps up to pick his jumper. “I am sorry and we don’t have to talk anymore but you are awesome,” he says calmly proceeding out. We hug goodbye reluctantly and he walks away and I hop back in my bed, to rack my brains.

Today…

I feel taken away by the sunset, and selfies by the window with the orange rays kissing my face would look really good on Insta. What would even be better is sharing these poignant moments with someone. A man like Phil who has a great reverence for all things abstract and artistic. I want to tell him to look outside at the breathtaking view. He’d say that we do it together, strolling through the fields as we play with our shadows. He’d ask for silhouette pictures and have us lie face up on the scarce grass with his arm wrapped on my neck and tell each other our childish fantasies.

But no, Phil is not here with me. He’s just a memory I relive often. I have never felt like this before. Closeness, depth, adventure, explicitness and brutal honesty. Not many people give me this sensation, but Phil did profoundly. I should be mourning the demise of my 3-year relationship right now, but I don’t know why it rings like old news in my spellbound brain.

All this time I have been reeling in the thoughts of his woman, if she had any. He said they live together and have been dating for 5 years. Sounds like a pretty solid situation to me. We talked about her over the handful of lunch and coffee dates we had. I was happy for him and so was he for me and my man then too.

Did she find out? Does she still hold the longing of him coming home like she sounded on the phone? Or does she know and forgave his slip up for 5 years’ sake or did she up and leave his loathsome butt behind? That's the closure I seek.

I mean you can't blame me for quarantine hasn't left me with more decent things to do.

My man wanted to put a ring on it and it’s only after he asked that I felt so unsure. There never is a right time anyway but I feel like in this discovery face, marriage is the trial and error thing I am not up for. I want to be ready, beyond reasonable doubt. He was upright and loved the Lord, and so do I. We were dyed in the wool Christian couple, fending off temptations and denying ourselves pleasures of the world.

The residues of my last relationship hover past me like a light wind as I swirl in bed and think about Phil. I never got to mourn it, or I will soon but first things first, Phil...

When all is said and done, I don’t know how to feel. Should I feel something?