She was on the bus thinking of him.
They’d been going out together for several months. He worked the other side of town and she was on her way to meet him at the café across the street from where he worked. They caught up regularly on a Tuesday and had lunch together. He always insisted that they ‘go Dutch’ to keep things even. She was thinking about the recent evening when he had forgotten his wallet and she had to buy the cinema tickets. He never seemed to have any money, although she knew that he earned more than her. He hadn’t paid her back, or even offered to, but it was a small amount. However, this brought to mind the much larger sum she had come up with when he needed to get his car fixed.
She sighed and took out her mobile. In her calendar she found the date.
She returned to her thoughts. That was several weeks ago. She remembered that he was short at the time and they needed it to go away for the weekend, staying in a motel near the coast. They had each paid their own way for that, as well. Her musings seemed to be acting as a wakeup call. She went on the recall the number of times that this sort of thing had happened. There were a lot of similar instances coming to mind, going back over the months. She hadn’t really noticed them slip by. She was only a couple of minutes from her stop when a feeling of foolishness swept over her in an ugly wave. In that moment she realised that she would have to do something about it. As far as she could see there were only two ways to go about it. She would either confront him about it or…
The bus pulled up at the stop.
She didn’t get off.