Today I awoke with a smile

    Odd. I hadn't expected him to be here - he hadn't been here in a while. But the sight of him triggered memories in the back of my head, coupled with sea salt ice cream impressions. My eyes traced his familiar face. A gentle smile broke out inside my heart, if only for the memories - the nice ones. My outward appearance was guarded, my eyes hard and wary. 

    He took several steps closer, slowly advancing on me. I stood my ground, jutting my chin upwards to slant my gaze at him. 

    "I've been thinking of you." 

    My insides went numb. 

    "Especially..." He grinned, his eyes flickering over my face, "kissing you."

    He was closer now, within touching distance. I felt the smile within me die. This was not unlike a daydream I had thought up many times, but never finished. I never knew how I'd really react. Would I take advantage of his favorable mood, seeing as I was the only one of us that actually wanted it? Or would I react how I wish I could - snub him with a brilliantly stinging remark and stalk off, leaving him hurt. The latter would have never worked, however. Being denied physical touch never had hurt him. 

    But the moment was now. I was looking at him dead on, sure that my eyes were blazing with surprise and rage. His expression was coy. He seemed to think he was sure of the outcome of this scenario, so confident like he always was.

    That was enough for me. 

    I slid around him the moment before his head started moving closer to mine. I looked at him, silently saying everything I wanted to in the breadth of a second. Whether he read everything, I'll never know. I turned my gaze, and left him behind. 





    
    I shut the alarm off my phone and stepped out of bed. A hot shower warmed my sleep-addled brain up to a working point, and I tried mulling over my dream. Not everything came at once, and I'm very sure I don't remember it all. There were definitely some weird-ass things that I was absolutely going to text my friends about, just to hear them laugh their asses off.

     The radio blared over the falling water - some chick telling a guy she was done. I suddenly remembered. Turning the shower off, I opened the sliding door and looking at my water-glistening body...and the smile wasn't forced. There was no anger, there were no tears. Perhaps that would come again, later. But for now, I studied the woman before me and felt pride. 

    I had said no. I was beautiful, I was fun, I was me, and I had said no in the kindest, harshest way I could manage. That didn't mean I was close to getting over this, but I was getting better. This was only the first of a very long line of no's.