Page 7 of Falling for My Ex Next Door

How was she doing? It was all coming back again, the regrets I had learned to forget over the past three years.

This morning had been like every other morning when I took laps around the neighborhood.

I arrived in Sunnyvale about three years ago, and I was planning to finally settle here. It was quite a peaceful place, and I could bet it was the perfect muse for anybody to do anything.

Before, Sunnyvale used to be like any other place, but over the little time I had spent, I realized there was much more to the place. Its ambiance provoked some sort of reverence for nature and, yes, for the people. I loved it here.

This morning, though, I never knew there would be a downpour. Unfortunately, it didn’t begin with a drizzle; it came down in full force, and I was forced to rush home on the last lap.

As I dashed across the street, my house was in full view, and my vision was hazy. My shoulder collided with someone. A voice winced, and a mini travel bag dropped on the slick black road.

“I’m sorry-”

I paused in my apology. She was a woman, and she looked very familiar. I looked intently at her while she ventured to retrieve her travel bag. Then she looked up at me.

Clara?

I was right; she was stunned to see me, but I was more stunned to see her. She was thoroughly soaked, and her shirt clung to her skin, revealing her lingerie and an eyeful of cleavage. Her brown hair cascaded down her back, wet and dripping.

I wanted to say something, but my tongue refused to uncoil in my mouth. I wanted to touch and embrace her, but my nerves grew numb at that moment.

I was as dumbfounded as I was happy to see her.

But she didn’t seem to feel as I felt; she wore a deadpan face, and her morose eyes looked upon me with something I just realized was disdain. In a split second, she was in front of the house next door, opening the door with a key she extracted from the base of a cactus plant, and then she shut the door behind her.

To think that I had often dared to imagine crossing paths with her but had been taken aback upon bumping into her earlier was ridiculous. I felt foolish and guilty.

I had chosen my father’s business and high expectations over her. I had let her go her way when I could have held onto her and still made headway, even when she was willing to have a long-distance relationship.

I had just believed the worst of us.

Was it pressure?

Perhaps I had been frustrated about the entire situation, or perhaps not, I couldn’t say. But at that time, I had been too weak to hold on to her.

Who knew that one of the fateful mornings I had my exercises would bring us together again? I wondered if she was doing fine. As much as I knew her, she disliked the rain.

An unsettling sensation rested on me like dew on a plant, and I was incredibly distracted from my work. A disarray of files lay on my desk. I couldn’t concentrate. I was far from it. Until she came, I could swear I was good, but I couldn’t say much about the present moment.

The doorbell rang, and I started. Then I remembered I was to receive a package from Jackson, my personal assistant.

Walking to the door, the delivery person handed the box over to me, and in a split second, he was gone.

The rain, I observed, had reduced in intensity and was now coming down in slant lines. I was tempted to step out further; maybe she could be out to dispose of the garbage or-

But I was attacked by the hostility of the house’s facade, right under the threatening thunder in the gloomy skies. I might have been overthinking it because, on a normal day, the house was a pretty sight; however, today, it was strangely foreboding.

I knew I felt this way because of her. I scuttled back in and went to resume at my desk, but I could still do nothing.

Raking my fingers through my hair, as I did whenever I felt restless, I decided to talk to my sister over FaceTime. Maybe doing that would placate my restlessness and this choking feeling of guilt.

“Hey, Dude! Are you good?” Daisy said from the other end, but she would not allow me to respond before she answered the question herself.

“Nah-h-h, you ain’t good.” She said with a knowing look, her left eye twitching with some kind of feminine instinct.

“When was the last time you were in contact with Clara?” I forced the question out of my guts.

“Clara?” Her brows arched in utter surprise.

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