Avoiding a meeting

I walked into the bar and saw her across the room from me. I hoped that she didn't notice when I walked in. Whit a guy the size that I am, that was very wishful thinking. Her eyes glanced over towards my direction, and I saw the look of recognition in them. The recognition faded into resentment and hatred like I knew that it would. What I had done to her had set her life into a downward spiral that few could have stopped.

I didn't like what I did, but it had to be done, for both our sakes. She could have chosen to take it many different ways, but she decided to play the victim, like she had always chosen to do. I couldn't let myself feel bad for her decision to do so, but something, so small guilty feeling, always felt bad. All I did was walk out of that room, never looking back, never responding to the words and emotions that followed me for the next several years. I had to leave. I had to make the choice to help myself so I could survive another day.

Luckily, she turned back to the friend she had been talking to. I continued into the bar and said hello to the people that I had know from a previous life, people that I had not seen in person for several years, people that I had missed talking to, people that mattered to me. I tried to continue as if I didn't see her there, going about her life, pretending that we hadn't had the life we had. It was everything I could do to keep moving and not turn and leave.

This was the meeting I had been avoiding, the thing I had not been looking for, the one thing that made coming back here such a hard decision. I know I had moved on, but I wasn't expecting her to have not let go.

This prompt provided by http://www.thinkingten.com/