One thing’s obvious to me—I’m not fit to be at work today. No doubt word of the morning’s sighting, and the likely spirited debate about whether or not it was actually Desi, has spread from the Methodist ladies’ group and engulfed my entire staff by now.

Meaning either they’ll want to talk about it with me, or they’ll fall guiltily silent at the sight of me, nudging each other with elbows as I approach, and I don’t want to deal with that, either.

I get it—my friends worry about me. Their concerns spring from a place of love, and I don’t take that for granted.

Doesn’t mean I want them falling all over themselves or me to try to cheer me up or lift my spirits.

Or, worse, start trying to fix me up. Because if they do that, and something ends badly, I don’t want other people dragged into the drama.

Of course I’m not the only gay man in town. Are there other eligible gay men in town? Yes, but none who I’ve met who float my boat in anything other than a let’s just be friends kind of way.

I’ve thought about using one of those dating sites but every time I start to fill out the profile, the questions make me think about Desi and I close the page without ever completing it.

The truth is that I am not over him yet, and haven’t even started that process. Maybe when he calls me back later I need to just say the words. Maybe I need to ask him if we’re truly…done.

Wish him love and luck and cut the cord to him once and for all.

He’s probably moved on, right? I told him to date. I knew dating wouldn’t be in the cards for me, at first, because of work and because I knew I’d be missing him.

But if he still wanted me and we do still have a “relationship,” wouldn’t he have taken more initiative to, you know, stay in touch with me?

Maybe I shouldn’t have texted him. Responding like that isn’t unusual for him, either. Our standing agreement is that if he can’t talk he’ll send it to voice mail and text me as soon as possible to let me know what’s going on.

I don’t know what I thought would happen and now I’m kicking myself in the butt for even contacting him.

Waiting until I know the orchid class is over to return to the store, I go in the back way and dart up the stairs, avoiding everyone downstairs. Quickly gathering my things, I let Jasiri, my assistant manager, know that I’m taking the rest of the day off. Then I return downstairs and leave through the back door before anyone can engage with me.

From the concern in Jasiri’s eyes, I’m certain she’s heard the rumors. Bless her, she has the tact not to say anything to me about them, and exudes more than a little protective mom energy to potentially shut down others who she thinks might upset me.

Once I’m securely locked inside my house again, I breathe a sigh of relief.

Alone.

I’m not an extrovert. I never have been. Which is odd, considering both my parents are. Working in the store, I never minded those interactions. It gave me contact with other people in manageable doses. I never had to force topics of conversation. I never felt at a loss for words. School wasn’t unbearable but I despised college.

I loved the classwork part of it but I had no desire to socialize outside of a classroom. It’s amazing I even made any friends, much less fell in love with Desi.

He wouldn’t give up on me. We shared a class and he kept talking to me before and after class, every day, asking me to coffee. Not obnoxiously, but I wasn’t sure why he was talking to me.

It took him a couple of weeks to slowly work me to the point where I finally found myself agreeing to meet him at a local coffeeshop. From there, it took him another couple of weeks to talk me into going out to dinner with him.

And so forth.

Three months later, I was in love and terrified that once Desi graduated he’d walk out of my life.

But he didn’t. He went home with me for holiday visits, and my parents loved him immediately. I slowly started working on him to make Maudlin Falls his home, and to my shock, he said yes. Once he completed law school, he moved in with me.

Oh, he still traveled some for work. He also took the bar in Florida, where he was originally from, and would sometimes work on cases there for a firm owned by a friend of his parents. I didn’t mind that. We shared my small apartment, and when my parents turned over the business and house to me, we moved in there together.

I thought that was it.

Tuesday karaoke became one of our routines. This introvert does love to sing. Desi would indulge me, sometimes singing along. I’m no Pavarotti, but I’m okay.

My sweet Desi, though…

Oof. He could set off car alarms and make dogs howl. Not the worse I’ve ever heard but definitely not the best, either.

But he’d do it for me, because he saw how much fun I had. He’d let me drink too much and enjoy myself before driving me home and pouring me into our bed, where he’d hold me while I sang myself to sleep in his arms.

Why wasn’t I good enough?

I try to snip that line of thinking at the source, yet it’s difficult not to let my mind meander down those dark and twisted back roads.

A year before Desi moved permanently, he was offered a junior partnership at a major law firm, where they guaranteed he’d make over five hundred grand a year. One of the senior partners was friends with his mom, I guess. My heart broke a little as I told him I wouldn’t stop him, that we could make it work, and he took me up on my agreement and stayed with his parents when in Miami. First, he would come home for three-day weekends. Which then became a couple of times a month.

Then he bought a condo in Miami and permanently moved back there once he took the bar in New York and passed it there, too. They were sending him up there several times a month.

He insisted we could still make things work between us, that people made long-distance relationships work all the time.

But I knew. I knew the day he packed the rest of his stuff and drove out of town three years ago that it was only a matter of time before the inevitable end came, even if he kept wanting to try to make this work.

My sweet guy hoped to convince me to follow him, I know he did. That’s why when we were together, his phone stayed off and he kept his attention focused totally on me while he wined and dined me and showed me all the sights.

There’s no way I’d walk away from my business, though. Or my town. Maudlin Falls is in my soul and I’ve never wanted to live anywhere else. I’ve never had dreams of “escaping” and living elsewhere. He grew up in Miami. I know that’s an entirely different world, not just a different state.

But escaping this place never held any lure for me.