Touched

Sarah came home with the anticipation of a future with someone new; an opportunity to fix what had gone wrong before and start with a clean slate. She locked the deadbolt. "You know what happened before... now find a happy ending," she thought. But lately, things hadn't turned out the way she had expected. Relationships grew and developed like seedlings and without much warning withered and died.

Sarah looked at herself in the mirror suspiciously and considered whether this would happen with Brad. Did Brad really like her? Would he still be interested once he scratched the surface; when she revealed her true self? Sarah kept asking herself how much she understood of this person-- this Brad. She felt more uncertain about him than with others.

She still felt the sting of Andrew and the fear he had created within her. Sarah was more self-conscious than ever. She was beautiful yet insecure. She ruminated on small things: she calculated the ratio her touching Brad to Brad touching her. She vowed that would not touch him more than he touched her. She would not give too much or too little. She scrutinized the things Brad liked, or at least the things he verbalized that he liked. She would be aware of everything and thus strangle any spontaneity she had left. Part of Sarah was tied in knots, like socks thrown in a corner. She was unsure of getting any closer. Anxious about a repeat of her previous temporary lives.