Defrosting

Amanda had the idea for this little detente, at a restaurant you and she liked to go to when you dated. You were in a short pink skirt, your blonde wig and blue eyes and tanned skirt marking you as the lady of the night that you were. Meanwhile, Amanda was in her abaya, her hijab, every customary mark of her Muslim Arab-African husband. She looked a little nervous on the surface, but the depths were pure serenity.

"I'm glad you came," she said, kissing you on the cheeks, as a sibling would. As serene as she was under the surface, your emotions roiled under a thin veneer of posh confidence. It still hurt you that she picked the most foreign and most distant of all the bulls. But then again, she'd played her part of your little game, the game you'd asked for. She hadn't asked for any of this.

"We're never going to be ... what we were," she said, speaking slowly. Your eyes instantly rimmed in tears. "But I hate what we are now. I hate that we're so distant. I hate that you don't want to be on this journey with me, that you're burying yourself in dick just to forget your own pain. I want us to be friends. I want us to be close, even if we can't be as close as you would like."

That was all that was needed to break you. You cried, and she held you, like a sister, like a mother, like a friend. Almost ... almost everything you wanted, but not as a lover. But it wasn't her fault. And you had to accept that.