Just Another Dave

He had no interest in me and I had no interest in him. Our paths should never have crossed. They would never have done so if it wasn't for the shared torches of sadness that we both carried.

Our eyes met across a crowded and noisy bar and we both made the same mistake. We mistook the glimmer of sorrow in each other's eyes for the sparkle of desire. We saw our own reflection in the other's gaze and the first step was taken towards a miscalculated and ill-fated rendezvous.

"Hi." He was by my side in an instant, leaning casually against the top of the high table.

"Hi." I smiled back, pushing aside the urgent warnings of my conscious mind. My sadness rushed forward and embraced his, leaving no room for rational thought. He wasn't my type, would never be my type. But I reached for the expression in his eyes with all the passion of a long lost lover.

He bought me a drink. We talked for a while, our eyes locked. Our conversation looped and spun and circled back. He'd lost both his parents in a traumatic and unexpected bus crash two years ago. I'd lost my long-term partner in a traumatic and unexpected love triangle two months ago. Our hearts both knew the devastating pain of loss and, in each other, we recognized a kinship.

I invited him back to my place, quietening the increasingly loud and utterly silent shouts of No! from inside my head.

We shared a bottle of wine, seated awkwardly side-by-side on my uncomfortable sofa. I had to remind myself what his name was. Dave. He looked more like a David. Or perhaps a Peter.

We ran out of things to say. He glanced towards the stairs leading up to my room. I hesitated on the precipice, poised between showing him the door and showing him the bed.

I paused for so long that he prompted me. "Well?" He was already standing, his body angled towards the door but his eyes fixed on mine.

"Ok." The word was so quiet that I wasn't sure if I'd actually said it out loud.

He took the stairs two at a time. I left the lights off. 

It was quick and awful. Without any light, there wasn't even the chance to lock eyes to see what had brought us together in the first place. A mindless, emotionless, empty connection.

He left soon after. I showered, scrubbing at my skin, and bundled the sheets off the bed, hoping to remove all traces of a coupling that should never have happened. 

Just another Dave. And a reminder to myself to look for the future in another's eyes, not for a past that I don't care to revisit.