Word Count: 387<\/p>\n

You would pretend not to see him, feign great surprise if he dared call your bluff. You know how that happens; you catch a glimpse of someone you don\u2019t want to see as you\u2019re standing in line at the register. They\u2019re not looking your way so you\u2019re safe but curiosity is so strong and the years are so long that you must, you must take a chance again.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a bit beefier, his hair cut quite short. He\u2019s wearing a plaid flannel shirt. Yes, it\u2019s a Saturday but still\u2026<\/p>\n

Your glance caught a blonde woman behind him. No one you recognized and you don\u2019t even know if she belongs to him. I mean, if they\u2019re together or just randomly standing nearby. You look down, your hands searching your purse for your wallet, but your eyes are edging back to where he is standing. May be standing with her.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re talking! They must be together. He\u2019s laughing at something she said. Most likely some dumb remark about the long lines and waiting, or the fat woman in front of them, or the unbearable brat behind them who keeps kicking the carriage.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s pretty in a different sort of way but you still don\u2019t see the attraction. He said he liked redheads, like you. He called you \u201cRed.\u201d Is his pet name for her, \u201cYellow?\u201d<\/p>\n

You look away quickly, pretending to scan the whole store. As if you were looking for someone, someone special who would be standing here next to you laughing and talking about brilliant things you would say. Someone who\u2019s so intelligent and lofty that his mind doesn\u2019t remember that he ran out of shaving cream only this morning and had to run back while you stayed in line.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re each at the registers, two lines apart. You rush the girl cashing you out. You want to be first to walk past him, pretending you never saw them at all. He\u2019ll be startled. He\u2019ll stare. She will ask him what\u2019s wrong and he\u2019ll sigh and think to himself what a fool he had been to have left you but he won\u2019t tell her that.<\/p>\n

Your timing, as usual, is off and you nearly collide. He looks into your eyes, smiles and says, \u201cExcuse me,\u201d and you know that he doesn\u2019t remember at all who you are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Word Count: 387 You would pretend not to see him, feign great surprise if he dared call your bluff. You know how that happens; you catch a glimpse of someone you don\u2019t want to see as you\u2019re standing in line … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychological-realism","tag-psychological-realism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=720"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":847,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/720\/revisions\/847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}