I Changed But Not Really

We turn to see Sally running to us. Is she following me? Why am I bumping into her so much? And right behind her of course her dog on a leash, Mark looking annoyed. Maybe I should annoy them more on purpose today. I think while smiling. I guess I am a little more evil. At least I never cross the line, I have a line that I will never cross.

I see Sally looking at Vincent more than me and I can connect the dots. Oh god she has a crush on him, of course she does that's no surprise. We always liked the same guys. Mark must hate this. Maybe I should take advantage of Vincent but immediately decided it's not right. Dang my headache is back. I feel my head pulsing, I just wanna sleep.

"It feels like we are always being interrupted." I can't help but sound tired.

"It does seem like it, I guess Mark didn't listen to me." Vincent sounded annoyed which surprised me since he's been nothing but nice to me.

"Hey Vincent, Hey Luna how are you guys, do you mind if we join?" Sally asks as she's sitting down without us giving her permission. Was she always this annoying? I guess I should remind her of manners.

"Sally, we didn't give you permission to sit with us. That was very rude of you to just assume it's alright to sit down with us. We were talking about some private things." I say, sounding hurt and not looking away from her at all so she knows that I'm being serious.

"Oh I'm sorry I was just excited. I didn't think you guys knew each other enough to be talking about serious things. What were you guys talking about? Can you tell us?" She asks, sounding so pitiful. If only she knew it's one of my pet peeves when people try to get their way like that. She would probably cry if I told her she's annoying me.

"Who are you? And why are you just barging in on our coffee date? Oh Mark, why are you here? Listen, I don't care if you guys know each other but do you mind hanging out another day?" Vincent says, glaring at Mark and sounding annoyed and intimidating. That is the manliest thing I have ever seen a guy do in front of me. I'm so happy seeing Sally face in shock and Mark at loss of words.

"Sally, if you want you can sit here. I was about to leave anyway." I say to Sally and you can tell she immediately got happy that she was going to sit and talk to Vincent. But she swears now I know she's going to be stalking me if I socialize with Vincent since she's interested in him. So I'm going to hurt her a little bit. I deserve some payback. I then turned to Vincent and signaled him to follow me with my eyes and luckily he caught on.

"Alright Mark come and sit down." Vincent says very nonchalant.

"Luna, you sure you're leaving, stay a little longer with us." Sally says with a smile on her face. She knows that once I decide to leave I mean it she's obviously saying this to look good. Was she always like this? I haven't paid attention to her but she seems different. Almost seems like she really thinks she deserves everything.

"No thanks I have errands to do, you know I live alone so I don't have anyone taking care of me unlike other people." I can see both Sally and Mark twitch.

"Let me join you, so we can continue our date." Vincent says as he gets up. Sally and Mark looked surprised and before they could say anything.

"Date? Since when?" Sally asked but at the same time I talked as well and pretended I didn't hear her. She really is very obvious.

"Sure come I can use some company." I say and we walk away from them without turning back. I smile and turn to Vincent "Wow I didn't think you would understand me. Thank you. That was very satisfying."

"Don't thank me so soon. Let me apologize first. I think this meeting was my fault. I told Mark what and where I was going to be and she must have asked him. That's why they knew where I was going to be. So I'm sorry, ``he said, sounding sad.

"It's alright either way with my luck we probably would have bumped into them regardless." My headache got a bit better so I feel like I'm in a better mood.

"I'll make Mark pay today. I know you guys don't get along so I told him so he wouldn't do anything stupid but I guess my warning wasn't enough." I turn to him because he actually sounds like he's holding in his anger.

"Calm down, it's alright. But I do have errands to do so maybe we should say our goodbyes now." I tell him remembering I do have things I was going to do.

"Do you mind if I accompany you?" He then looks at me with the cutest puppy eyes I've ever seen. I couldn't say no to that.

"Sure but I hope you don't mind walking." I warn him since walking on this warm day will heat us up and he's wearing a black hoodie with dark blue jeans. I know I will get hot since I'm wearing a cardigan.

"I don't mind, but" I look at him since he paused but before I can ask him to continue he did so himself. "Do you hate Sally and Mark? I could see you were grinning before they sat down." He asked nervously. Is he nervous that I might not like the questions he asks? Whatever. I think about how to answer his question since it's kind of complicated to word it.

"I don't hate them, I just don't care for them. Like I can care less what they're doing with their life but I don't want anything bad to happen to them. And I don't know since when but there is something about Sally that has been throwing me off for a while." I then stay quiet thinking about it. Sally has been bugging me lately. I feel something about her is off but I'm not great friends with them anymore so I don't want to ask but hope she is okay. I then turn to him and wonder what he thinks about them. " What are your thoughts about her?" I ask hoping he can give me anything since he's been hanging out with them recently.

"She's annoying. I don't like people like her."

"People like her?"

"Yeah, she's very manipulative. She acts so innocent, and yet she knows what she's doing and what she wants. I'd rather not deal with people like her." He says while looking ahead.

"She is right. I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking like that. I was starting to feel guilty thinking like that." I say as I look inside the store's window. "We're here." I say looking inside a little excited.

"An art and craft store?" He looks confused but I go ahead of him and walk inside. I grab a basket and I immediately walk to the corner where all the paint is at. After a minute of silence.

"You paint?" He said as I was getting a few brushes.

"I used to paint on a daily basis, but as I started to get older and busy I had other priorities so I stopped." I sound a little depressed and thinking of everything I've gone through it couldn't be helped.

"What do you paint?"

"Whatever comes to mind. Usually I just start with a background color and go from there." Talking about color, I see there aren't many in stock today. I might have to come back another day.

"Can you show me some of your paintings?"

"Sorry I actually threw away all my old paintings." I say remembering how I ripped, broke and destroyed all my paintings. After Michelle passed away I felt all my paintings were bad and did no justice for her. I do have a few but I will never show them to anyone.

"Why?" He said curiously. I'm so…depressing sometimes, I should lighten the mood.

"I accidentally ruined them when moving so it was heartbreaking but it happens." I say with a smile and reach to grab some paint and bushes. "Do you paint?" I ask, trying to change the subject away from me.

"No, I was never good in art class." He says with a smile on his face. His smile is so pleasing to the eyes. I then blink and I see him staring at me. "Wanna teach me?" He asked me with a playful grin. What a flirt I think as I look away from him and see that my basket has a few things in it already.

"Not really." I turn away and walk to another aisle. I need to buy a canvas but I don't know if I should get a big one or a small one to start with. "Big or small?" I ask him as I have two different size canvases on either hand.

"Depends, what are you going to paint?" He asked.

"I don't know…maybe I should get a sketch book first and then move to a canvas." Yea maybe that's for the best right now. I start putting everything away, and head to some sketchbooks nearby.

"You like to be alone huh?" I flinched at that. Who likes to be alone? I don't but I'm fine being alone. I'm used to it.

"Why do you say that?" I ask not to show how irritated I am.

"I don't know, I've just heard you're always alone and your hobbies are things that people who like to be alone do." He says innocently. I know he's not being mean but I can't help but feel irritated and it doesn't help being tired already from last night. But when people just assume who and how I am, it's annoying. People always want to assume first before finding out. I look at the basket and put everything away. I turn to him and smile.

"Well it seems there is nothing I'm going to buy. So I'm going home and as much fun as I had, I'm not in the mood to hangout anymore.." At the end I sounded angry without meaning to, and I started to walk out the door.

"Are you mad?" He then grabbed my arm and turned me to look at him. "Why?"

"I'm not mad, I'm just tired and a little irritated so I want to go home." I say while looking at his hand gripping my arm. He wasn't holding me tight but very gentle as if he was afraid I would get hurt.

"Please don't be mad at me. I'm sorry." He quickly apologizes, he's the first to immediately apologize. It shocks me and makes me happy to know he truly doesn't want me to be mad at him. It makes me feel warm.

"I'm not mad." I say to him to assure him. "I'm really tired. Last night I had a friend over and we stayed up last night drinking so I'm pretty tired." I tell him to make sure he knows I'm not trying to be mean or that I'm mad at him.

"Oh I'm sorry I didn't even ask if you were busy and still asked you to go out with me."

"It's alright don't worry I was going to come here regardless." I say feeling weird that I'm not the one apologizing for once. We started walking and we were next to my car. "Do you need a ride?" I ask to make amends, feeling bad that he's been apologizing the whole walk to my car.

"It's alright thank you for the offer but my truck is not that far from here it's actually two cars down." He says with a smile. Good were on good terms now I sigh in relief. "Text me when you get home so I know you got home safely." He says with a smile that I'm already addicted to. This is bad. I'm too into him.

"Okay thank you for today." I say with a shy smile.

"Alright bye." He says. Before he walks away we both wave to each other. I then face my car and before I even open the door I hear.

"You don't have a chance so why bother trying to get with him."