Water under the bridge

I went to meet my ex for dinner last week, and as I cycled down to the seafront it occurred to me that it must be nearly a whole year now since we'd seen each other. How could I have let that happen? I guess because I spent last summer punishing him for breaking up with me by refusing to see him before I stomped off to the States. Looking back, I'm not sure exactly how 'punished' he'd felt by that, in fairness, considering he had a super-cute new girlfriend to hang out with and I wasn't exactly the best company at the time anyway.

But there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then. And while most of it was laced with piss and vinegar in bars and motels across America, it was water all the same. It was good to see him again; he looked well and happy and I felt instantly fond of him again and was glad we'd finally made time to catch up. He's about to go off travelling himself, with his girlfriend, and as he was telling me about her he stopped and said, wait, is this weird for you? Are you okay with this? And I laughed and reached out and squeezed his arm and said yes, yes I am really okay with this.

And anyway, I said, I have some news of my own. And so I told him about the hot, older film director I'd met in the cafe up the road from work the week before. Really! And he grinned and shook his head and I grinned back and wondered if he was wondering when the hell it is that I'm going to stop making shit up.