Page 10 of Kiss Me Softly

I really needed to break up with Barbie…

When I walked into the bar Aurora was already there, waving to me from a booth in the back corner. I headed towards her, noting that she was also wearing jeans. Hers were dark washed skinny jeans that she’d paired with a floral shirt and Birkenstock sandals. With her hair hanging loose around her shoulders, she had a bit of a Bohemian vibe. She was gorgeous.

We greeted each other with a quick hug, then I slid into the booth across from her.

“Did you order yet?” I asked, reaching for the laminated menu at the end of the table.

“Nope.”

“This place has surprisingly good food,” I told her. “A friend of mine used to live nearby and we spent a lot of time here.”

The server came and we ordered beers and a basket of fried mushrooms to get started. I had a feeling we were going to be here a while.

“Before we dig into our problems, tell me what you’ve been up to since the last time I saw you,” I suggested.

Aurora wrinkled her nose like she’d smelled something bad.

“Not much has happened since the last time I saw you,” she said almost sadly. “I’ve been working at the same place, living in the same apartment, nothing exciting at all.”

“But not dating the same person,” I reminded her. “You were single when we last saw each other.”

“So were you.”

I nodded in acknowledgement. I wouldn’t have slept with her if I wasn’t.

“Okay, since nothing is new in your life besides your relationship status, tell me about Chris,” I suggested.

“Are you sure you want to go into all that before we catch up on your life?” she asked.

“Why not? Chris is the elephant in the room, right?”

I winced as I realized that it probably sounded like I was making a fat joke about Aurora’s larger sized partner, but she didn’t seem to notice my poor word choice.

The server arrived with our beers and Aurora held up her glass for a toast.

“To friends, new and old.”

I repeated her words, clinking my glass against hers and taking a sip of my beer. Aurora followed suit, taking a healthy swig of her beer and leaving a trace of foam on her lip. Resisting the urge to lean across the table and kiss it off, I pointed to my own lips. She got the message immediately, using a napkin to wipe off the foam.

“Tell me about Chris,” I ordered. I could tell she was dying to get it all off her chest.

“We met about eighteen months ago, and we’ve been dating ever since,” she said quietly. “It’s never been a big love match. If you want to know the truth, I was thinking about turning twenty-nine and how that meant I was going to be thirty soon, and then I thought, ‘My God Aurora, you’re going to die alone’ and next thing I know, I’m dating Chris. I’m not proud of it, but there you go.”

“People have dated for much worse reasons,” I said.

“It’s not been terrible dating Chris,, but they’ve just been there, you know? They seem to like me okay but that’s just it, I don’t want to just like each other. I want love and passion and all the things that go with it.”

“Did you have it in the beginning?” I asked curiously.

“No. I tried to convince myself that this was a grown up, mature love, and it didn’t need all the fireworks and drama,” Aurora explained, “but now that we’ve moved here, it’s like I’m seeing my relationship in a fresh new light. Moving to Chicago didn’t fix what was wrong in our relationship, it just shone a light on everything that’s wrong with it.”

She took another sip of her beer, then paused as she chewed on a mushroom.

“There’s nothing really wrong in our relationship. We don’t fight. We are generally respectful of each other. It’s just…boring, you know? There’s no passion or excitement. We’re better as friends than we are as a couple, at least in my mind.”

She looked miserable, so I decided to share.

“Do you want to know a secret?” I asked.

---