09-18-2004 - 6:17 p.m.
The saga continues...
At what point exactly did my life become a soap opera?
So, on Thursday morning I wrote my entry about the whole Steve crisis, and later that afternoon I decided to head over to the outlets in AC for some much needed retail therapy (we had the day off from school). My first stop was the Gap, where I wanted to stock up on some new work threads. I found a boat load of clothing, went into the dressing room to try it all on, and walked out feeling quite pleased with myself because I had a huge pile of clothing to get me through the fall and winter at work.
And then I saw him.
Steve.
Yep, right there in the fucking Gap.
I swear my heart literally stopped for a second or two. He had his back to me, so obviously he hadn't seen me yet. So, I went into total panic mode. I started shaking all over and weighing my options which included 1) going up to him and saying hello, 2) pretending I didn't see him at all and hiding out on the other side of the store or 3) going about my business and not acknowledging him until he saw me.
Finally, I took a deep breath and approached him.
Needless to say when he looked up and saw me he was shocked as hell. It turned out he was there with some lady he worked with on his lunch hour. We had a minute or so of mindless small talk and then he said he was gonna get back to shopping.
Now, at this point I'm totally freaking out. I grabbed the last couple things I needed (all the while shaking uncontrollably) and then booked it over to the cash registers.
I saw him looking at pants nearby and he was no longer with the woman from work, so I decided I needed to grab the opportunity and talk to him.
So, I went over. And I asked the question I'd been dying to ask him all week long "Do you hate me?" He looked at me like I had ten heads and was just like "I don't hate you! Why would I hate you?" So I asked why he never returned my phone call and he's like "Because I didn't want to talk about it. That whole situation was stupid and it's not worth talking about."
I told him that I'd been worrying about the whole thing all week and how awful I felt about it. And don't you know that mother fucker had the nerve to be like "I'm not mad. I have no right to be mad! As a matter of fact, I thought the whole thing was really funny. It was hilarious!" So I asked him why he had been yelling if he thought it was so "hilarious" and he claimed that the whole time he'd been fucking around with me. And then he's like "Well now I feel bad that I was messing around with you because obviously you didn't get that I was joking."
For some reason, the more he spoke, the more upset I became. I was shaking even more at this point, my face was probably bright red, and my voice was starting to shake as well. It was just upsetting to hear that something I had literally lost sleep over apparently didn't mean anything to him. (Well, so he claimed.) I was fighting back tears so hard, and finally I didn't know how much longer I could hold them in. So, I turned my head.
And he said goodbye and walked away.
Now, I was left with a major dilemma on my hands. I had armloads of clothing that I really really wanted to purchase, but I also really reallly wanted to get the hell out of that store. Of course, my inner shopping goddess won the battle and I jumped back in line to checkout. As luck would have it, the line had tripled and was now moving at an alarmingly slow pace so I had to stand there for what seemed like hours with tears filling up my eyes, my heart popping out of my chest, and Steve standing 10 feet away shopping for khaki pants. It was a nightmare, I tell you. I cried in the freaking Gap! Who crys at the Gap? That's like the happiest place on earth besides Disney World. You can't cry in a store that Sara Jessica Parker is a spokeswoman for! Totally uncalled for.
And I'm sad to admit that I was so distraught from my encounter that I not only left the store, but I left town too. Didn't go in any other stores, didn't buy any other goods. He ruined my day of shopping!
Last night I went to a bar and ran into his whole crew, minus him but including Bob. Everyone (inluding Bob) was really nice to me and made small talk as if nothing had happened. Which I thought was mad cool of everyone. Well, everyone except for Steve's bitchface sidekick, Courtney. Everyone else walks up to me and is like "Hey Nicole, whats up?" She walks up to me and is like "Hey Nicole, have you recovered from the events of last weekend?" It's like THANKS for bringing it up Court, because I had totally forgotten about it and really needed a newsflash bulletin reminder that I'm an asshole and everyone thinks I'm trashy.
On a positive note, at least I know they're not all raging gossips like Miss Courtney. This kid Jeff who had been out on Saturday but happened to not be around for the kiss fest at the one bar came up to me and was like "Hey, where's your boy tonight?" When I replied that I don't HAVE a boy, he just rolled his eyes and said "Yeah right."
Either he's totally clueless, or I am.
