Never Mine To Begin With

A Chanced encounter

“Violet, are you even listening to me?” The voice of Connor, my boyfriend interrupted my train of thoughts. I blinked repeatedly and faced him with a fake smile plastered on my face. Connor bored me out most times as he liked to talk so much about himself. Most times he was often occupied with it that he never noticed when I zoned out of the conversation. Seems like today was an exception.

“I'm sorry my dear. You were saying?” I mustered the most saccharine smile I could manage that I hoped screamed ‘I am crazy about my boyfriend.’

Instead of my smile to elicit a smile from him, his face twisted in anger and lips upturned in disgust.

“Don't tell me you were thinking about your paintings again?” He asked.

I gulped and kept quiet because I was, in fact, thinking about my paintings. Seriously, who knew that the type of green to paint a valley could be so confusing. I was leaning toward it, but I could hear my creative side telling me it was better.

“When will you g, row up, Violet,, and get a real job?” He spat bitterly at me.

I recoiled, visibly in shock. I knew he always joked and called my paintings my ‘hippie’ lifestyle and also jokingly told me to get a job, but he has never brandishly told me that my painting was not a real job. I felt like someone just smacked me on the face— hard.

“I'm sorry, what did you just say? Painting is a real job and my passion too. I have to love what I am doing to be able to call it a job." I fired back.

“And this is the reason I said you need to grow up. I am a hedge fund manager. What part of me screams I love my job? But I get up every waking day and go in to get the damn job done! Not because I love it, but because passion doesn't pay the bills! Act your age, Violet Sanderson. We are no longer college students anymore. We are twenty-four-year-olds who need to plan our lives.” He said, his voice going up some decibels higher causing some patrons seated at the bar to turn their heads in our direction.

I should have been ashamed at the attention we were garnering, but instead, I chuckled blithely, so much so that a tear rolled down my eyes.

“I don't see what's funny in what I just said.” He frowned.

“Someone that will hear you speak would think that you hustled your way to the top. They wouldn't know that the hedge fund business is your family's business. You did nothing special to deserve it. You were simply born into the right family. The rest of us who didn't get that had to hustle our way around. I worked numerous odd jobs to keep myself afloat for this dream you call ‘immature’ and ‘childish’. So sorry if for once in my life, I just want to work on myself and my dreams. You know what? This is not working at all. We are better off without each other. Don't know why it took me so long to see that.” I took off the promise ring he gave me after college when he promised me that he would make me happy for the rest of my life. As the cynic I was, I took it with little expectations, and I am glad I did.

His brows furrowed in confusion, “You are breaking up with me because of something so trivial?”

“That exactly is why I am breaking up with you. Because you think this is something so trivial.” I replied to him.

He sat still for some minutes, possibly shocked at the turn this conversation had taken. I can't blame him, though, because I shocked myself, too, by ending the relationship so easily. One wouldn't even believe we had been together for five years now. Connor wasn't always this bad. Yes, there was the occasional backhanded mockery every time I came back from my part-time jobs in college. Statements like ‘Wait, you work at the Dominos close to college? Can you wear a mask because I don't want people to know my girlfriend works there. It would be insulting and the circle I roll with would make fun of me.' ‘Do you really have to do grocery shopping on off-sale days? I can afford it you know.’ I tossed those statements because he grew up with money, so he doesn't understand money problems. For this reason, I never took a dime from him because he saw giving money to anyone as a charity, and I didn't want to be a charity case he bragged about picking up from the gutters.

I wasn't dating him for marriage because my family had a down-on-luck syndrome when it came to love. I was dating him for companionship because I wanted someone to talk to when it got hard or when I felt down. As the years went by, he became more conceited and self-centered. It made the relationship suffocating and exhausting. It was at this point I knew I was done. I was tired of walking on eggshells and feeling suffocated like I couldn't breathe every time I was around him.

He stood up sharply and the stool he was seated on clattered on the floor. I sat there unfazed as I took a sip of my mocktail.

“I would love to see you survive without me when you don't have a real job.” He declared hotly.

“Seeing as I never collected a dime for you in our five-year relationship, I should say I would do just fine,” I replied.

“You would beg me to come back to you, and by then, it would have been too late because...” He was saying when I snorted.

“I won't. Please, go already. You are dragging this longer than necessary.”

He stared at me for a full minute before stalking out angrily.

I turned back to the bar and kept sipping my margarita like what just happened didn't just happen.

“Thank you for saving my poor ears from hearing anything more about hedge funds. Some people just don't know when to shut it.” A deep voice that sounded like a rumble said from beside me.

I turned my head sharply and stared at the amber eyes of a guy with his full, black, curly hair. He was in a shirt and trousers. Three of his buttons were undone and his sleeves were rolled to his forearms. His jawline was sharp and his nose was so pointed. The perfect face that had me almost saying, ‘Is that you, Adonis?

“Rude much,” I replied back.

“Not even as rude as you were. The way you decimated him made me glad that I don't know you personally.” He chuckled lowly under his breath as he took a sip of his Malt Whiskey.

I shrugged my shoulder, “He had it coming, though. How dare he call my love for painting childish? Thinking about it now just makes my blood boil. I don't...” I stopped talking at this point because I realized that I was talking to a stranger, and everyone knows one of the first rules is ‘Don't overshare; it's burdensome.'

“So, any chance for love again? Or you have sworn off a Happily ever after?” He asked, not pointing out that I stopped midway. Guess he was not so nosy after all.

“Oh, love is nice but I already know it's not for me. So, he didn't ruin me for other men if that's what you are asking. I already accepted that people like me don't get to find love anyway.”

“Something we agree on. Cheers to that.” He raised the glass, and I raised mine, and then we clinked our glasses together.

“So, what is a young guy like you sitting here doing when you should be outside breaking hearts?” I teased the stranger, wondering what inspired this, my newfound confidence to talk to a stranger so unabashedly.

“My personal assistant quit. She said I was too harsh in my criticisms and I told her that an office was not a kindergarten where one's hand needed to be held.” He said it so easily like he was someone who never took back statements he made.

“Harsh.” I chuckled.

“Well, I didn't earn the name ‘Blunt-talking asshole’ to soften my words for people. I told her what to expect before I gave her the job. Why, then, did she retract her stance and say I should have said it nicer? People are the problem, not me. You can't say you welcome criticism and get mad when you get it.” He said with an underlying tone that suggested there was more to it.

Not knowing what to reply to that, we just sat in silence, taking our drinks in silence. In a record time, he downed two cups of whiskey and stood up. His suit jacket was hung behind his chair. He took it and placed it in the crook of his left arm.

“Was nice having a companion and witnessing the most bizarre breakup ever. This is the most I have been entertained in a while.” He said and started walking away.

“Wait, I didn't get your name.” I hollered at his retreating frame.

He turned back, did a mock salute, and said, “Ask me if our paths crossed again.”

“And why can't you tell me now?” I asked, puzzled at his reply.

“Because where is the fun in that? I love a good game.” With that, he left the bar.

I felt a fuzzy feeling that I hadn't felt in a really long time. So long that I had even forgotten what it felt like.

And what was this pull to place my lips on his?

Who was this guy and why did his aura captivate me so much?