I learned a lot about Dakota during several subsequent conversations. She had, in fact, gotten out of the hospital due to taking too many sleeping pills the day before I met her. I guess I hadn't given it enough thought, or maybe I imagined that it had been a few days, and the knowledge that I met her the day after an ordeal like that startled me a little bit. Her stated reasons for taking the pills, "just wanting to sleep for a while," should have startled me, but didn't. I knew exactly what she meant. Sometimes I just wanted to sleep, too. The more we talked the more I liked her. I thought we shared a similar brand of attention seeking depression. Two tragically flawed people hopelessly reaching out for something, anything, to grab on to that had some modicum of meaning. Something warm, loving, and comforting. I also learned that her ex-boyfriend Jack had blown her off during her darkest moment, and she was very much devastated by it. Okay, so she was hung up on a guy who dumped her at the precise moment she needed him to be there, and he just left. That's gonna mess with anyone's head, no matter what. None of that mattered to me. I found her sadness to be fascinating and beautiful. There was one more piece of information that would ultimately impact me: she was previously engaged to a man who was still around, helping her with her work. Of course, I didn't find that out until after I spent a night out in the company of both of them - the new girl I liked and her ex-fiance.
Garrick, Dakota, her ex Jeremiah and I were sitting in Dakota's apartment. Jeremiah was a web designer and aspiring stunt man with well styled blond hair and piercing blue eyes who was there helping Dakota complete a project. Naturally, he was still infatuated with her and he hated me right from the moment we met. Since I had gotten to know a couple of guys from Northern Ireland who were living across from me in L.A. and he happened to be Scottish, I asked him a question that I felt might be a way to start a conversation and maybe even make myself feel more comfortable.
"Do you call yourselves Scotch?"
I thought perhaps one of my Irish friends had said that, and maybe they did in some kind of drunken rage, making fun of the Scottish. I guess it was a stupid question. He didn't reply right away so I told him that information was straight from Belfast. "That's Northern Ireland," he said. "Yeah, I know where it is," I replied. Dakota could see the tension that was between us, and she asked me within earshot of Jeremiah, "Do you feel comfortable?" I said I did, as I spied Jeremiah fuming from behind his bright blue eyes, clenching his cartoonishly square jaw.
That same night we all went out to a bar in San Marcos. We saw a shitty band play, drank $2.00 beers, and had a good time despite the disparate personalities and the informal and blossoming competition Jeremiah and I had brewing. Dakota caught me looking a a girl's ass walking past our table. She made fun of me. I found her teasing to be cute and I liked that she called me on doing such a thing. It rained that night, and as one who hadn't seen a thunderstorm in a few months, I stood outside letting the rain soak into me. While standing outside the bar at the end of the night, Dakota was talking to some friends of hers. I was nothing short of piss drunk from all the drinks, and as she was talking I noticed that she had a strand of hair in her face. Without thinking, I reached up and gently moved it back behind her ear. She said thank you and continued talking. After the conversation was over we all went back to her place and said our goodbyes; Garrick and I heading back for Austin. During the car ride back to his place, Garrick told me that Jeremiah wasn't just the guy who was helping to design her website. He was, in fact, the man who had been engaged to her. She called it off as she just wasn't ready for him at the time. That's when she started seeing Jack, who (as she had told me during the party) was quite good in bed. Wonderful. She had great sex with the last guy, and the one before him, the blond hair blue eyed stuntman, who, according to what Dakota had told Garrick, had a huge dick just to top it all off. I didn't have a chance in hell. Or if I did, I would either be laughed out of the bedroom or be that mistake that makes a girl realize just how good she had it before. Oh, well. I wasn't going to be there for very long anyway. She was a nice girl, and I liked her, but all of the things my pop-culture addled brain told me could happen where you go away on a trip, meet a girl, fall for her and have a two month whirlwind romance only happen in the movies, right? Right?
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