My Love: Mr Sergeant

Running into her



Not until I ran into her at the mall 2 days later.



I had taken a leave at the office to go get some groceries and do a little shopping for Karis at the mall, weaving between the crowded aisles with a list tucked in my pocket, 

When I accidentally bumped into someone, the containers in their arms scattered across the floor between us.



"Ooh, I'm so sorry," I said, already bending down to help pick up the scattered containers that fell off the person who I had not recognized yet, my hands moving quickly to gather what I could reach.



"It's okay, just hand them over," a voice said above me.



I paused, container still in hand, the voice sounded very familiar, this was a voice I would recognize even in my sleep, and a voice I wasn't prepared to hear anytime soon.



I looked up, and the containers fell off my hands, clattering back onto the floor as my chest tightened.



"Betty," I called, my voice coming out smaller than I intended.



"Yes, Jeth?" she replied and rolled her eyes, not a trace of surprise on her face, as though running into me was nothing more than an inconvenience.



I stood dumbfounded with no words coming out of my mouth, staring at her like she was a stranger wearing a familiar face.



I watched as she picked the containers and left me there, her heels clicking away against the tile without so much as a backward glance.



By the time I regained my speech, I turned to see her already outside the mall, entering an Uber, the door shutting behind her before I could even think of what I would have said.



I shook my head and continued shopping, with my mind not leaving her, pushing the cart down the aisle on autopilot, barely registering what I was picking up off the shelves.



I got to the apartment around noon and put a call through to Peter, dropping the grocery bags onto the kitchen counter as the phone rang.



"Yo man, what's up?" his voice filled the air and I had to shift the phone a bit from my ears.



"I'm good," I said, pacing toward the window, "Guess who I ran into at the mall today."



"Just give me the gist bro," he said, already impatient.



"Betty."



"Hmm, pardon?" I could hear him sit up straight through the phone.



"Betty, I ran into Betty at the mall today."



"Ohh, what happened," "Did you guys talk?"



"No, she didn't look quite happy to see me, and I was dumbfounded, we didn't converse," 

I uttered, sinking down onto the couch as I spoke.



"I hope you are not thinking about her?" His tone shifted, careful now.



"I can't help it man, my mind has been filled up with thoughts of her," I admitted, rubbing my temple.



"No man, she has left already, she's now in the past, she doesn't need you anymore. 



She didn't even ask about Karis, meaning she was okay with her present life. Man, you need to stand on your feet again, 

Betty is history already; focus on your daughter, focus on yourself and, most importantly, focus on Sara, and I am being serious here."



I let his words settle for a moment, staring out at the afternoon light spilling through the window.



"Thanks man," I said and hung up, sitting back against the couch cushions with the phone still warm in my hand.



I sat there for a while after the call ended, the room quiet around me except for the faint hum of the refrigerator down the hall, my thoughts still tangled somewhere between the mall and this couch.



Betty's face kept surfacing in my mind, unchanged, unbothered, like the last three months hadn't touched her at all, while mine had rearranged themselves entirely around her absence.



I thought about what Peter said, turning it over slowly. 

He wasn't wrong.

She hadn't asked about Karis. 



Not once, not even a flicker of concern crossing her face in the two minutes we'd stood there together.



And yet some old, stubborn part of me had still hoped for something else, some sign that leaving had cost her anything at all.



I got up eventually and moved the grocery bags from the counter into the fridge, going through the motions without much thought. 

My mind was still circling back to the sound of her voice, the way it hadn't wavered even slightly when she said my name. It struck me, standing there with a carton of eggs in my hand, that maybe I'd been holding onto a version of her that never really existed outside of my own memory.





Karis would be home from day-care soon, and I didn't want her walking in to find me sitting in the dark, turning old wounds over in my hands like they still had something new to teach me.



I splashed water on my face at the kitchen sink, letting it shock some of the fog out of my head, and told myself Peter was right. Betty was history. 



Whatever she'd needed, whatever she'd wanted, she'd gone looking for it somewhere else, and staying tangled up in that wasn't fair to Karis, and it definitely wasn't fair to myself.





Sara's name lingered at the edge of my thoughts long after Peter had said it, quiet and persistent, the way it always seemed to these