Complicated Intentions Part. 1 -By Ivy Parker

She examined her ivory face in the mirror while she stroked the dry blush on her eyelids. Her honey-colored hair fell around her face. Tori didn't want to look too close. The less she looked, the more she could kid herself that she was low maintenance. Besides, the fact remained, her nose was too big.

"What are you trying to say? They were together, but they weren't together?" Terrence asked from where he leaned on the bathroom doorway, drying his hands on a cup towel.

He cleaned the kitchen, she thought. Well, after all, he's cooking supper tonight. He needs a place to call home.

"It's complicated." Tori looked at him. "Kind of like us."

"What?"

"Nothing." She put her blush back in the medicine cabinet and eyelined her dark round eyes. "Look, I just saw her at the library, and she was alone. She was using the Internet. She got off on time and walked away.Then this old guy--"

"How old?"

"I don't know, at least forty. She was young. Like high school young."

"Maybe he was her dad?"

"It couldn't be her dad. He didn't look like the 'dad' type."

"You think they're having an affair?"

"I don't know. At the library?" She rolled her eyes.

"Maybe you'll see them again."

"Maybe." She put her handbag over her shoulder. "What can I expect in the food department when I come home?"

"Spaghetti sound okay?"

"Sure."

"I got some lettuce."

"Okay, I'll pick up some tomatoes or something on the way home."

"No, I'm making you dinner. Just come home." He looked at her, like maybe she didn't know how to get home from the library.

"I'll be here." But it might be an empty promise. Sometimes, she forgot. It wasn't intentional. It just sort of happened.

He pulled her close and grabbed a quick kiss. She didn't respond.

"Okay," she sighed. His grip was tighter than she wanted. She pushed away. "I got to go." Suddenly she was in a rush to get away.

As soon as she shut the apartment door behind her, all she could think about was how she could get away from him. How would she do it? She couldn't breath around him. He was too good for her. Why can't we just be friends?

He'd worm his way back in somehow. She knew. That lion's mane of his and the skimpy goatee were just deterrents of a fellow who wanted to come off unattached. Tori knew better. All Terrence wanted was a place to keep his cold beer, veg-out and say, "Hey, I love you, Babe."

Tori rolled her eyes and imagined him sprawled out on her couch digging through Fritos and grinning like a sly cat. It gave her the creeps. This was it. Her boyfriend, the couch potato.

A headache steeped behind her eyes. Somehow she had to stop this before it became permanent.

She took the bus, stepped over the trash, imagining stepping over Terrence, crushing Terrence, chunking Terrence into the sewer. She believed it now. She hated him.