The Ones That Get Away

Loud music was blaring as we crossed the parking lot.
"You girls be safe tonight," a waitress called as she got into her car a few feet away. The only lights outside the place were on what could be called a porch, though at the time it appeared to be a drunken round table discussion of which college was best. A guy in a plaid short sleeved shirt was swaying a little too much while explaining the indesputable greatness of Ole Miss. Two frat guys wearing black and gold baseball hats stood, arms crossed, smirking at him.

"Well if this isn't a dive..." I trailed off, and stepped onto the porch.
"I know. But its Neal's dive. So we're going." Regina pulled open the door.
Immediately I could smell the stink of five thousand cigarettes and the unmistakeable stench of bar. Cigarette flavored yogurt, I thought to myself, yogurt thats been sitting out for too long.
We wound our way to the bar, dodging several tramp-stamped co-eds.
Ten minutes later, I had already been approached by two middle aged men trying to talk to me about teaching, and we were making a dash for a table. The karaoke was loud. as. hell.
"That's Neal." Regina said. "That's him singing."

I would like to say that I understand Regina's fascination with an overgrown, overconfident, manchild whose bushy eyebrows eclipse a beady eyed gaze, but I don't. Was I being harsh? Sure! But Neal had broken Regina's heart in a few places.
I enjoyed Regina's friendship so much because she reminded me of myself, and we had the same sense of humor. It had been a while since someone who was a totally and completely illogical choice for me had been able to break my heart, but it had happened. They hadn't looked like Neal, but it had happened.

He was standing on the middle of the 4 inch platform that qualified as a karaoke stage. He was wearing a white button down shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, some black pants with black dress shoes, and his tie was undone and dangling around his neck.
"God, he looks like something out of the Wedding Crashers."
Regina hiccuped a quick laugh, but her eyes were glued to Neal's face. He hadn't seen us yet, and I wasn't sure what it would be like when he did.
Regina had only ever told me about her relationship with Neal. I'd never met him. Though all three of us had been in high school together. Regina and Neal both graduated the year after me. Though Neal had been just as much of an oddity as he was now, I had always marveled at how he had managed to become semi-popular. He was charismatic, there was no doubt about that. He was hilarious, which was always a plus. And he had apparently been under the influence of various illegal substances nearly the entire time he was in school. Regina, on the other hand, was active in student council, active in the debate team, active in the German club, and was now jet-setting, donning a superior attitude, and teaching various English classes around Austria. Yeah, that Austria. The one in Europe.

I looked up at Neal who was belting out Bohemian Rhapsody along with some other innebriated male individual. He was cracking jokes, enjoying the smoky, eye watering limelight. Regina was enamoured with him seemingly needlessly. I found it fascinatingly unnatural. He was the cookie she couldn't turn down. She knew it would be gone in a while and she might even get heartburn because the balance of the ingredients was a little off kilter, but she just couldn't resist a taste.
Thats exactly what happened when we went in that night. Possibly on both accounts.

"Oooooh, hey!" Neal was crossing toward the bar, where we were standing along the wall. Regina had an eye lock on him like a missile cruiser, and I was trying to play it cool. As more and more short skirts and perfume piled in, it was becoming immediately apparent that I might be too old, or too cool, for this bar.
"Um, hey!" I shot back at Neal like we hadn't come there looking for him.
"It's so good to seeee yoooooou," he leaned in and hugged me. Could he not see Regina? I turned and she had moved somewhere. Now I was standing there blocking the aisle by myself. It was weird, too, because I had never really said more than a few sentences to Neal in my entire life. I hadn't seen him really at all since high school. And now he was greeting me like an old friend. Oh well, I thought to myself, I feel like I dated him myself after all the crap Regina's told me.
"Its good to see you too," I said. "Hey, she's here with me, you know." And I motioned toward the rest of the place, because I suddenly didn't know where she was right then at all.
"Ooooh. Yeah." He grinned and kept staring at me. Weird!
"We're here together. Regina and me." My eyes shot across the room trying to locate her so I could bail. "She wanted to come by and see you."
"Cool. You guys sit down, I'll be over there in a sec."
Awkwardness averted, I moved toward the tables. Everything was aglow with red light from a neon sign in the corner. Regina was sitting at a table sipping her beer. I sat with mine.
"He's trying to buy our drinks, you know." Her eyes were seriously glued to him.
"Really?"
"But we already paid." She looked straight ahead. "I bet I can get him to buy something else." There was some sort of determined look on her face. It was bizarre. She was clamming up, I could tell, because she was trying hard to look that determined. This was a trait in Regina that I was starting to recognize. Anytime she was uncomfortable she would do something that implied the exact opposite of discomfort. Something like the haughty gaze she was working up now.
I chuckled.
"Oh, come on, Regina. Are you in love with him or something? I mean, we're all the way out in frat-ville on a flippin Tuesday. Its after midnight and we just got here."
"No! ...yes." She giggled with a high pitched little yelp.
"But you're going back to Austria. You don't even live here. Are you just in love with him because its nice to be in love?" I asked because in-love-for-the-sake-of-the-anguish was a game I was fairly good at playing. I liked it. It wasn't risky because you expected failure.
"No, actually. I think-- well, Neal is the only person I would consider staying for. I would stay here. For him."
I widened my eyes in half-mock surprise. "Whaaaa? You!?"
"I know, I know..."
A drunk guy in a baby blue polo stood up and took the mic, professing his love for a brunette in the corner who was covering her face.
"No, Regina, not you. You don't even live in the US any more. You're here on vacation, remember!"
"For the summer, yes. But I would stay here for him."
"Dude," I said, dismissing it. "Don't give him that much power. He doesn't even deserve it."
"Oh I know."
We both looked over to see Neal coming towards us. He pulled up a chair, and sat in it backwards. A portrait of nonchalance.
"Whats crackin?"
He had terrible dental issues. Still, despite his beastly qualities, he exuded a nearly unmatched level of confidence. Regina and I remained poised.
"Nothin. We've been out," I said.
Neal's eyes were immediately on Regina.
"So you came to see me?" One of his eyebrows did a little dance upward.
"Maybe. I just hadn't seen you in a while."
"Well its really good to see you, you know." He moved the chair toward her and she smiled shyly. It was hard to tell under the hardass act she was pulling, but I knew her well enough. It was indeed a shy-smile.
"How can you stand this place?" I blurted. "We're sooo over this scene, you know?"
Neal laughed a little before pointing to the dj next to the karaoke station. "I know Crystal well enough that I can pretty much sing whenever and whatever I want. I know the bartenders. I get stuff for free. Its fun."
"You come here a lot then."
"Sure." It was back to Regina with him. "So what were you guys talking about before I came over?" He was leaning in a bit. He was sweating from his vigorous singing.
"You." Regina was attempting coy.
"Yeah, cuz I saw you last week at the phone store," I added.
He flapped his tie at me. "Yep. Still workin there."
"But we didn't come out here because we saw you at the phone store."
"No?"
"We came out here because we wanted to sing karaoke," Regina continued. Not so much coy now.
"Well I'm glad you came. Its very good to see you."
"Oh, Neal, honey, you just have no idea what we've been up to, do you? Or what we've been talking about."
Neal smiled. "You should fill me in."
They sparred back and forth. They were really saying nothing. Regina sat straight and stiff as a board in her chair, playing coy. Neal played along with his lazy ease. He almost seemed accustomed to it. The whole verbal dance could have gone on and on if I hadn't stood up and got right down in Neal's ear.
"What are you doing? What are you saying!" Regina yipped from her chair. She was grinning though.

"Okay," I said, "I'm only going to say this once. Maybe its because I'm a tad drunk or because I'm sick of staring at your faces while you crack this very un-witty banter, but bottom line: news flash: Regina is in love with you. She just wishes you were a better person." I was looking down at Neal then, watching him process this with some awkwardness. He was gazing around the room and listening, and felt put on the spot. I knew that. But since I felt no emotional connection to him whatsoever and it was kind of fun to watch him squirm.
"I know she is," he finally said. "And I'm a work in progress."
"Hey, aren't most of us in progress?" I replied.

Regina and Neal sat snug on one corner of the table.
I scanned the room and came up with nothing. It was a whole lot of drinking, smoking, "accidental" ass smacking, and cozy couples that would probably claim they didn't know each other by the end of the week.
We walked to Regina's car with Neal. He kissed her good night. They said something too low for me to hear. I tried the passenger door handle three times before Regina regained consciousness and unlocked it.
"Wasn't that so funny!?" She gushed.
But I was thinking about relationships. I was thinking about distance, and age, and the things we do for other people. I was thinking that Regina would never in a million years stay home for Neal. His jokes and charisma were not even enough to find him some cool friends. He was 24 years old hanging out with a bunch of college freshmen who didn't really glance at him but to laugh shallowly before they took another shot. G-o-i-n-g nowhere.
And maybe I wasn't going anywhere either. Maybe I'd sold myself short a long time ago, like Neal, and had made bad decisions and couldn't possibly fall in love with some Austrian teacher like Regina. Then again, I reminded myself, Neal was the one who didn't want to be with Regina. He was the one who made it hard to commit. Regina, like me, practically begged for commitment when she found something she actually wanted. The thing was, we always wanted what we couldn't have.
To Regina, Neal was one of the ones that got away.
But as I looked down at my phone, the number on which I had changed maybe four or five times in the previous twelve months, I knew it could be a lot of things keeping Neal and Regina apart.

If anything, there were three pieces of information I'd learned in the last few years.
Those were, A) Timing is a bitch, B) The ones that get away don't always want to be chased, and C) Sometimes the ones that get away don't deserve to be chased.
As we drove into suburban south Nashville, Regina continued gushing and speculating about her encounter with Neal and I wondered to myself about who might consider me one of the ones that got away.