You couldn't even pretend to be surprised to see that she'd shown up. Even though it was uncommon and she was uninvited, it felt somehow normal. Here she was in your state, in your town, in your bar with someone who wasn't you and it all somehow made sense in its senselessness. She was everything you had remembered, yet nothing you could have expected.

You, with your whiskey and cigarettes and eyes like a predator, stayed still in the back of the bar. If you didn't move, you couldn't fuck this up. It wasn't that you didn't want to be seen, it's just that you wanted to be seen on your own accord. She had shown up and caught you off guard, but you weren't going to let that affect you. 

This was about control.

This was about power. 

This was about dominance.

This was about nothing and everything all at the same time. These were the sorts of thoughts that made you an asshole in her eyes. These were the sorts of thoughts that enabled her the independence to show up on your territory unannounced. These were the sorts of thoughts that kept you warm even though it was 15 degrees outside and there was no one holding you tight.

It was true that in this moment you felt like you loved her. It was also true that only six months ago those sorts of feelings were easy to ignore. Now it felt like a goddamn tidal wave crashing down on you.You sat up straighter because, if she was going to catch a glimpse of you, she was going to catch a glimpse that oozed of confidence and not of regret. You could have blamed it on the whiskey and it's obvious impairment of your judgement or the dim lights and how they clash so harshly with reality, but when she turned away from the bar, her eyes weren't the only thing twinkling beneath the fluorescents. There was something on her left hand, on a finger you couldn't quite define yet, catching the light and recycling it back with some egotistic, effervescent glow.

Much like her ring with the light, her eye caught yours. Unlike her ring, her eyes lacked that same sparkle and enthusiasm. They stared back at you unemotionally, as if you were the butt of some joke that had been haphazardly planned out. You allowed both her and yourself a smirk before raising your glass and tipping it in her direction. 

There was a girl in front of you who you were pretending to listen to. You gave it an honest effort at first, but your eyes slowly slipped from her to the house party scene behind her. There was too much going on for you to have to focus your attention on just one person. You left her in the middle of a  sentence, but you didn't care. It made you an asshole, but it also made you more likable. At least where girls like her were concerned. She would keep trying to grab your attention until she failed catastrophically or until Alex, quite literally, kicked her ass.

Speaking of Alex, she was very territorial and somewhere at this party. You knew you didn't have to go looking for her because she would find you eventually. Girls like Alex always want to be seen and that's a really important thing to know. Everything about her is looking for attention. It's crying out in a way that dares you to ignore her, yet covered in a fabric meant to cover up those pathetic pleas. The fabric, however, was too translucent and if you looked hard enough you could see right through it. And if you looked at it enough it would wear away completely, like a chair that's been sat in too many times. She's loud even when she isn't speaking. This is something you both love and hate about her. It's honesty packaged within a lie. Or perhaps it's the other way around. Either way, it's obnoxious and endearing, atrocious and pleasing, and you figure there's no reason to give yourself a headache over it now. She'll show up when you're more ready to handle her. You'll make sure of that. 

In the movie of your life, you were the director instead of the main character. Every scene occurred because you made it occur. Everything happened because you made it happen. You played people like yo-yo's, substituting them out and in at your own will. It was true that some things got by you, but you took pride in the fact that not many did. So right now, you were going to let Alex get by you and you would pull her off the bench when you felt like you wanted to.

For now, you were content floating from room to room and going mostly unnoticed. It occurred to you that most of your days went like this. It was all sort of monotonous, but it didn't make you feel like killing yourself yet so you felt no urgent need to change it. You found a seat in the corner, smoked your cigarette, and tried to look at people as if you didn't know them. You tried to imagine what their stories were and why they were here and what they would be doing it they weren't here. The problem with this was that you did know them and you could answer all of those questions with an honest answer or an 'I don't give a fuck' and it was all so boring. 

""Justin, what's up man?" This was Trav. You and Trav has been aware of each other's existence since elementary school, but had only really become friends after high school. It was a friendship bred from circumstance with very little emphasis placed on actual emotions. Although you were okay with silence, he was not and always seemed to be stuttering about searching for information to fill you in on. This usually led to you being involved in things you did't necessarily want to be involved in, but all your other friends had moved away over the years and Trav was the next best option. His outward appearance represented someone who you should be friends with, but underneath that he fell short. Very short. He was more an ally than a friend, but it had been working well enough and neither you nor he sought any immediate urge to change it. 

"Alex is downstairs." He said. You nodded. You did want to see Alex, just not right now. Therefore, whatever she was doing at this moment was of no concern to you. 

"She's screaming at some waif-y brunette. It's crazy, man."

Suddenly, whatever Alex was doing at this very moment was of every concern to you. You never got off on pretending to be psychic or all knowing or anything of the like, but without even asking, you knew exactly who Alex was yelling at. And you knew that you had to interfere because the yelling was almost certainly your fault. That and Alex was capable of breaking bones. You didn't excuse yourself as you stood up. You just smoothed out your pants, lit another cigarette, and prepared yourself to watch the metaphorical representation of two parts of your personality collide. 

Take a deep breath and walk down the stairs. 

The scene in front of you was nearing disaster, and while only two people were taking some sort of physical part in the chaos, many more were standing around to witness what would become. You understood human nature well enough to know that no one actually cared if anything more transpired between the two girls. Everyone just wants to say that they were there and they watched it happen. This is why they would waste valuable and literal minutes of their lives standing around the sidelines of someone else's drama. It was sad. You felt bad for them. However, at this moment, you were doing it too so you just felt like one of them.

There was Alex yelling at a seemingly mute, small brunette whose silhouette you would have recognized anywhere. Her hand was placed delicately upon her small waist, but her ring finger took all of the attention. You felt weak and wanted to vomit, but you fought it. 

You eyes locked with Alex's and she laughed. She was saying something that wasn't registering within your brain. Your mind had created a reality wherein which the only things in existence at that moment were you and that ring. And honestly, that ring wouldn't have felt like such a threat on any other finger. Any other finger and you wouldn't be fixated on how many karats it was, or how much it must cost, or who gave it to her. Any other finger and it would have went unnoticed altogether. But it just wasn't on any other finger.

Alex was being drug away from the victim waist first while screaming obscenities over your shoulder. Even though you had a very small window to decide, you knew that it mattered which woman you drug from the battle scene. It was a picking sides sort of thing. It was like being in gym class and choosing teams from a game of kickball that no one agreed to play willingly. Choosing either one came with semi-heavy consequences, but one had a ring on her finger and one didn't. 

"Anyone but her!" She says when you're both alone. She says this with the sort of conviction and devastation you imagine yourself saying 'any finger but that one', but you don't say this out loud. Her red cheeks clash with her normally porcelain skin and you want to tell her that she should think about wearing more blush, but you don't say this out loud either. Her make up isn't what you should be focusing on. You've been dealing with women long enough to know that you don't tell one how pretty she looks when she's mad.

"She's prettier than her pictures." She says quietly, not looking at you, and gets up and walks away. 

If you weren't so selfish and fixated on jewelry, you would have realized that this was a huge moment for everyone involved. This was the first time ever that the three of you had been in a room together all at once. This was the first time that they had even met in person. Ironically enough, this was not the first time you felt like putting your head through a wall.