It's another back end of a long term relationship and she doesn't know what to do.

Sure, there's the usual cliche of eating ice cream while she watches bad movies and cries, but she's done that before and all it gets her is dehydration and brainfreeze. So she ended up at a bar even though she hates them, because at least here she can drink and not be alone. Her rum and coke is too expensive and she's not spoken to anyone save the bartender but life gets cheaper once one becomes single and if she could have gotten her drink without even speaking to him she would have.

She's just so tired of men, she thinks. It's not that she can't get a boyfriend. All her life it's been the same thing. They love the quick way she laughs, her wit, her mind. They’re always good guys, every one of them, sweet and kind people, gentle souls that just need a little lifting up. She's always been good at lifting up, at listening; she has a knack for pushing when a push is needed and refraining when it's not. It's why they tell her they love her, and she believes them. She always believes them because they're never lying.

After all, its always her that leaves. At first it's great; that rush of love, that fierce connection. Then it's just a few small things she notices and dismisses. But they stack up. Always the same thing, never different. Three men in a row now; doesn't that make a pattern?

She understands, she does. When she breaks up with them, she tells them she loves them, because she does. But she has to let them go, has to set them free. They all love her back, sometimes fiercely. None have ever looked relieved that she was ending things. A bitter part of her thinks that's because they feel like they were too good for her to considering leaving them. Maybe they were.

But she can't stand it. Sex is too important to her. She loves it, she tries to be so good at it, to get into whatever her partners like and to share and be open and enthusiastic. And it's just that. It's the enthusiasm; she breaks up with them because of that.

She wants unhesitant hands. She wants hands that reach out eagerly to touch her, that don't pause before they do. She wants hands that seize her and pull her close. She wants kisses unburdened by that crawl of her partner's skin, that are full of lust, even need. Just once, she wants someone to look at her and crave her, to not shy away, to make her feel not that she is loved but desired. She has had her fill of love. It tastes like poison when it comes with repulsion.

It makes her so angry. It isn't their fault. She understands that they can't see her and want her. She wants to praise them for loving her anyway, for trying, but it isn't enough. She deserves better than that. They deserve better than her.

Everyone deserves better than this.

She'll drink her rum and coke and sit in silence. There's no hope of someone talking to her tonight, which she knew when she came. But she feels so alone and there's only her to blame. He would have married her. But then she would be trapped in a life with hesitant hands. Trapped and loved but bitter and depressed.

With a quick motion, she downs her drink. She puts down her money, leaves a big tip. Not that she was a needy customer but that she apologizes for herself everywhere she goes. She gathers up her things, and she goes for the door. Being here is too much. The din of the bar doesn't help. She almost wonders if she came to make herself feel more miserable.

All she wants is for someone to see her and want her. To not even need to know her name. To not see her smile or hear her laugh or get to know her first.

All she wants are unhesitating hands.

So she resigns herself to being alone.