Forbidden Ideas: Part I

My birthday is tomorrow, and I can't believe I'm going to spend it alone! Brandon left for Arizona on Wednesday, and he won't be back till Monday afternoon. He's been planning on going to this golf tournament for over a year, so I obviously couldn't object, but the timing still blows.
The past couple of weeks have been...crazy.
Me and Bethany's party was a success. We had a great time, and I was definitely wasted by the end of the night. However, Brandon got stuck at work, almost all night because of that stupid Rockets playoff game, so he didn't even get to the party till like 1am. :(
He still hasn't given me a present yet either. But we're supposed to celebrate together when he gets back, so maybe he's waiting for that. Me and Bethany have both been hinting at this diamond necklace that I want from the jewelry store. It's the Eiffel tower in diamonds! So pretty, I fell in love with it the moment I saw it! But...I shouldn't get my hopes up.
In other news, I kind of had a blast from the past the other day. When I was in college, I very briefly dated this guy Mike. He was super nice, and really smart, and we liked allll the same music. Even like the really obscure stuff, like Jeff Buckley. So we never ran out of things to talk about. But then, one day, just out of the blue, he stopped calling! So that was the end of that. And I remember being really upset and confused about it at the time, but I was in college, and it didn't take me long to find another boy to distract me from those feelings. So anyways, Mike has been coming to my bar pretty regularly for about the past 6 months. And at first, I could tell he recognized me, but felt awkward and didn't wanna say anything. But then he must have remembered how cool I am or something, because he eventually started talking to me. Hehe.
"Didn't I hang out with you in college once?" He asked.
"Yea...I vaguely remember you." I lied.
And we just went from there. Nothing flirty, or inappropriate, just the usual "what have you been up to" and so on and so forth. But lately, he's been coming in more frequently, and we've been talking more often. Mostly about the upcoming Incubus tour. I always buy his first round of beers, and sometimes he'll buy me a shot, and that's that.
So last Friday, he came in. I was extremely hungover from my party the night before, so I wasn't feeling as chipper as I normally would. But Mike came over to my well, and said hello.
"Man, I wish I could give you a hug! But I can't reach you from over there!" He said.
"Yea...that's the problem with being behind the bar..." I said with a smile.
"I know! Let's invent a secret handshake! That's way better than a hug!"
Then he proceeded to invent one and I was forced to participate. It was quite amusing.
I got his first round, and he came back 3 or 4 more times, before he asked to close out.
Since his tab was free, I printed out some receipt paper and wrote:

$1,000,000!!!
Jk! :)

I handed it to him with his credit card poking out, so that it looked like a real bill. He laughed when he read it and began scribbling something back. When he handed it to me, it was a note with his name, phone number and a little P.S. at the bottom that said, "This note will self-destruct in 5 seconds!"
I couldn't help but giggle. I had just gotten a phone number! Granted, it was a phone number I already had, but he didn't know I still had it. And of course, I had no intentions of calling him, since I have a boyfriend, but it was still intriguing. And flattering, of course!

So now, let me get to the reason I'm even bringing this up. Things with Brandon and I have not been going so smoothly lately. He's been acting distant again, which is something he does quite frequently. It's like he gets close, then pulls away, gets close, then pulls away. Two steps forward, one step back. Ya know? It's so frustrating! And it's almost my birthday and I've been feeling kind of...pushed aside, and so I tried telling him that, and it just turned into this huge fight. ((Sigh))
We worked it out, sort of, but I couldn't stop thinking about Mike, and "What if??"
What if things with Brandon and I aren't meant to be? What if he'll never let me get close? What if Mike and I are meant to give it a shot? Why did Mike blow me off when we dated before? What if I'm passing up a good thing???

Brandon and I got into another argument about the same thing on Monday night. We'd been out having drinks with some coworkers, and he was feeling pretty good. And he'd been acting so...weird. Not like himself. Really stand-offish, it was like he wanted nothing to do with me. So, naturally I said something about it. I told him I felt like he didn't want me around, and he never shows me any affection.
"Well just because I don't hang all over you all the time??" He said.
"No!"
"Because if I did what you're asking, you'd just get annoyed by that too."
"That's not what I'm asking! I'd just like a little acknowledgement once in a while! A hug when I'm upset, sit next to me when we're out, actually hang out with me instead of leaving me sitting at the table with your friends!"
He just rolled over and pulled the cover over his head.
"I don't wanna talk about this right now." He said.
"You never wanna talk about it! There will never be a time when you'll want to talk about it, and it's bothering me now, so I wanna talk about it!"
"If you raise your voice, I'm not gonna listen at all." He said stubbornly.
"Fine. I'm talking in a normal voice. I can't keep pretending this is working when you're putting this wall in between us. It's not fair to me."
"It's not a wall." He said.
"Yes it is. You put me here, on the other side, in the distance!"
"Well! I just know how this goes. It's the same with all the other chicks. Just because we're together, they assume things, and I don't want you getting any ideas."
"Stop comparing me to other chicks. I hate that. And what ideas are you talking about??"
"Nevermind..." He sighed.
"No. Tell me. If I'm not supposed to be getting these ideas, I wanna know what they are." I insisted.
He signed again.
"Marriage! Because that's not gonna happen in the next five years, maybe not even the next 10 years, so you may as well not waste your time thinking about it!"

I rolled over and didn't say anything. All I could see was Mike's face in the forefront of my mind, as the tears poured down my cheeks.