The Rendezvous

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My heart was racing when I entered the pub. I didn’t even like this place. But I had left it to him. After all, it was his treat. My first love. The man who still lived in that tiny empty corner of my heart.

We were meeting after 20 years. Both of us had decided to make this our first meeting. No online snooping to find out how we looked now. That was the deal.

The years that had flown had put a distance more than the oceans that separated us geographically. Years that had seen unhappy marriages and painful divorces for the both of us.

Then last week he had called, a common friend had given him my number. I had promised to meet him. He wanted another chance. He wanted to meet the woman I had turned into. This was his favorite haunt whenever he visited my town.

Yet, my gut was screaming at me to run. I entered the pub and glanced around. It didn’t take me long to recognize him.

God…what have you done to the handsome seventeen- year- old I fell in love with? That was my first thought when I saw the beer-bellied man with bloodshot eyes grinning at the bartender, flashing his tobacco stained teeth.

Sensing my presence, he looked at me and asked, "Rhea?”

“No, Sorry,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to know this person. I turned and rushed out.

 Faltering back to my car, I gave last rites to all those fond memories of him that I had cherished over the years.