”You will come back to me. You always will. You can’t escape me, no matter how much you try. So leave. Try to live your life without me. I don’t care if it takes weeks, months or even years. I know you’ll come crawling back. And when you do, you better be prepared. Because when you do, I will never let you go again. Enjoy your freedom. And when you’re tired and sad and lonely, use your last choice as a free man to come back to me. I’ll be waiting. You know how patient I can be when it comes to you.”

I could see my breath when I exhaled. How long had it been, now? Almost a year? The words he said that day, with that stupid self-assured arrogant smile, keeps lingering whenever I’m alone. Or rather, when I’m lonely. That day, I should have turned around and told him to go fuck himself. Told him he was wrong, and that, even if I saw his face in my next life, it would still be too early. I should have thrown away the piece of paper he gave me or ripped it apart right in front of him, watching while the smile slowly faded from his face.

I should have done just one of those things. And yet, I didn’t. I just ran away as fast as I could. Without a word, without looking back. One foot in front of the other, I ran away like the coward I was. Away from him. Away from his words. Away from the thoughts that kept spinning in my mind. Thoughts about his smile when I still liked it. Loved it. Couldn’t get enough of it. And the thought that kept lingering on, still. I couldn’t outrun the feeling that he had been right. That I could never escape him. That, flee as I might, I would still end up in his arms.

And once again, I found myself looking at the piece of paper he had given me. Standing in front of a trashcan on a random street, trying to make myself throw it out once and for all. To prove him, and more importantly, myself, wrong. It’s my only direct connection to him, and yet, I can’t let go.

“My number. I will never change it, so call when you are ready for me to pick you up. No matter where, no matter when, I will come for you.”

It had sounded more like a threat than anything else, when he had given it to me.

Not that the note itself mattered much, anymore. I had been in this situation so many times before, staring at it, that I had probably memorized it by now, without meaning to. It was almost illegible from the constant crinkling and un-crinkling I had done at this point.

“Not today, either.” I told myself in a small voice and decided to give up and go home. It was too cold for being undecided. Or so I told myself. It was always like this, in the end.

Today hadn’t been a good day. I got fired from another job. This time it was because I had sent a customer a supposedly ‘weird’ look. When I tried to explain that it was simply because I was wondering if I should tell said customer that he had something that looked like toothpaste in the left corner of his mouth, or not, he exploded. Apparently, he had been a friend of the owner, and didn’t appreciate my ‘attitude’. Last job, I was fired because of being one minute late, and the last job again, it was a sudden bout of lay-offs.

Once again, luck wasn’t on my side. Should I have just told him about the toothpaste from the start, or ignored it entirely? It didn’t matter now.

I was sad and jobless, it was cold and dark. Loneliness had crept up on me, and where loneliness came, his voice usually followed. Before I knew it, I had taken out the note with the number, nearly calling, stopped myself. And then I was running away, away, away. Ending up in a random street at a random place, in front of a random trashcan, following the same dance I had been doing for almost a year.