The rug was pulled from under me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. It’s not that I had never been dumped before, but this was different.
We had been seeing each other for ten months, which I suppose is in that grey area between casual and serious, an anniversary looming and the significance of that maybe accelerates feelings of wanting to get out or be stuck for a while.
It was always a bit on/off, tiffs and reconciliations, wary truces and weary, tear-y phone calls. But we kept at it, giving it our best shot. We were both bruised fruit, she was bit fresher than me but we had both lived and loved.
She had the remains of a collagen mishap on her lips, not grotesque, but noticeable, particularly if she wore lipstick, which she sometimes, inexplicably, did. This should have been my first clue, but I was blind.
She was funny, clever, sparkling. She did yoga everyday and managed to make a living doing substitute teaching while still pursuing her artistic dreams.
She never seemed to eat and consequently weighed 95lb. She was not conventionally attractive but managed to make it work as a sort of sexy fairy.
I was besotted, by her spirit, her talent, and her supernatural energy. She also had very high standards of behavior, that I apparently failed to reach sometimes. This was the cause of most of our arguments.
We lived ten minutes from each other and would see each other maybe three times a week, four if we were lucky. Sometimes just for a daytime hike, sometimes for a proper date, but mostly for cheap and charming evenings in.
There were hugs and hopes and kisses and plans, we always tried to be nice to each other, but were both quick to find fault if the other seemed to be not trying as hard. Whenever we fell out and made up, I would try to take the attitude that we were in a new and better place, she would always say we were back to Square One and we should pretend that our next date was our first, I had to regain her trust. It got tiring.
She said she shouldn’t really have friends who earn less than 50K a year (I earned less than 50K a year, so did she). I asked why and she said you should always surround yourself with people who inspire you and lift you up, she had read it in a book. All the other people in her circle did reach her financial threshold for friendship. It occurred to me that it was lucky that none of her gang had read the same book and put it into action, as then she wouldn’t have any friends, except me. I didn’t say this, it would have led to an argument.
She was little, brittle, and beautiful. If ever I did something of which she didn’t approve, but to which she knew she didn’t really have the right to object, she would resort to the passive-aggressive “You do you”.
I was very attentive, it was usually me who instigated text message chats, but she always responded pretty quickly. We always knew where the other was, and what they were doing, and with whom. We compared our busy and ever-changing schedules enthusiastically to carve out times we could see each other.
We had met through a weekly writers’ group, very mutually supportive and generous, maybe a hundred floating members but you’d usually get about sixty showing up each week. We had got chatting one night and enjoyed each other’s company. We were already FB friends through the group so I instant messaged her after a couple of days and kind of asked her out, but leaving it vague enough so she could say no without me feeling rejected. But she was game, we arranged to just go for a drink before the next writers’ group meeting.
It went well, we both had done this sort of thing before so we easily moved through the early stages of modern courtship. Though I was always kept on my toes by her insistence on proper behavior; not walking too fast, or too slow, asking her questions about her day before daring to say anything myself.
We saw shows, and movies, and went for walks, and loved, and argued, always about perceived slights or claims of moral or intellectual superiority, hers not mine. But I loved her, she cleverly made me feel I was not quite in her league. Any gift from her always had a subtle undercurrent of criticism.
And after ten months she just said that we were no longer romantically involved. I asked if there was anybody else, she said no. The next night I found out, in the cruelest possible way, that she was seeing another member of the group, and had been for a while.
I should have taken it better. I always knew it was not going to last forever. But the crassness of it floored me. Because in that moment, I realized that she was not who she pretended to be. She was not someone with high standards who expected the same from her suitor, she was faking it. She was actually a stunted eighth grade mean girl who thought nothing of just swapping me out for the first better offer. After ten months of her convincing me she was classiness personified she was the last person in the world I would have thought capable of such low behavior.
I fell apart, not because of the end of the relationship, but because the person who I had loved, didn’t actually exist, it was just an act, designed to fool the gullible, and it did. I had put too much faith in her, trusted that I was someone she cared about, turns out she cared about no-one but herself.
I didn’t eat or sleep for two days, and still felt the dull ache in the pit of my stomach after a week, it hit me worse than the break-up of my marriage (I told you I was bruised fruit). My world collapsed around me, I was truly lost.
We were never exclusive! He knew that. I know we were accidentally monogamous for a while but that was purely circumstantial, I never considered myself in a relationship. We did things together but he was never my plus-one at an event, and I made sure he wasn’t in any of my Instagram posts.
What we had was nice, fine while it lasted, but he always knew he was lucky to have so much of me. He caught me when I was at a low ebb and it was comfortable, more so for him than for me but I went with it. And then it just got boring, neither of us had any money so it was all cheap dates and juggling survival jobs. And that’s not me, or at least not the me I want to be, and being my best self is important to me. And we kept arguing, sometimes about nothing, sometimes about important stuff but always with raised voices and harsh words. It beat me down and wore me out.
So of course I started noticing other people. There was this man who I’d known for a while, he went to the writers’ group. He was a substitute teacher too, but for LAUSD. I wanted to pick his brain about how to get in with them. I’d never really considered him in a sexual way before but he was very helpful and generous with his advice and we had a nice chat. Then he asked if I wanted to go to a St. Patrick’s Day party with him. It wasn’t necessarily a date, and he’d done me a favor. And then I saw him as if for the first time. He was handsome and sweet, he had an innocent boy-next-door quality that I hadn’t noticed before. Not moody and broody like I’d gotten used to. I said yes.
He didn’t know I was seeing anybody, I always made sure I didn’t look spoken-for at the meetings, As it happened, Grumpy was pretty busy for a couple of weeks so it was easy to not see him.
The party was fine, still not a date, but I knew that would be the next step, and I wanted to take it. He asked if I wanted to go and see the poppy fields with him in a couple of weeks when they would be in full bloom. That sounded wonderful to me, a proper date in the most beautiful romantic setting, not watching TV and drinking cheap wine. It was a school holiday (April first) so it would be a perfect way to spend a day without feeling I was missing out on any work, I gave my enthusiastic consent. So we started seeing each other properly, the prospect of a lovely daytime date had smoothed the transition. We were a thing now.
The next writers’ meeting I sat next to him at the back. Grumpy knew not to sit with me, he was having stuff read that week so he’d be brooding about that all evening anyway. I knew I should finish it with him but didn’t quite know how to.
I rang him when I got home to ask how he thought the reading had gone, if we’d have argued I could have turned it into a dumping but no such luck as it went straight to voicemail.
The next day I asked him if he wanted to go to our usual place, a cheap Mexican restaurant, for a snatched hour as we were both busy. He came, I told him we were no longer romantically involved but I wanted us to be super-supportive friends. He took it very well, we’d probably split up half-a-dozen times by this point but this was the first time it wasn’t the result of an argument. He said he wanted to be friends too and then he asked if I was seeing anyone else. I said no, I didn’t want the good vibe ruined unnecessarily. I also didn’t want him to storm off and leave me with the bill.
I was organizing an event the following night, I wasn’t expecting either of them to come but Grumpy showed up in his new capacity of supportive friend. I knew for sure that the other one wouldn’t make it but he’d said he might try and meet me afterwards. He did, turning up just as we were all leaving. It was ugly. I managed to get rid of Grumpy but had to say I had plans with someone else. He wasn’t happy. Luckily “someone else” was innocently oblivious, so no need to let him know about anything.
That’s when the texts started, kind of understandable at first, just saying that I’d shat all over him and lied to him. Then he called and I tried to talk him down but it soon devolved into him calling me names.
The poppy fields were lovely, it was a beautiful day. We both posted FB pictures. Grumpy saw them both and went into further meltdown. He worked out that when he was having pages read and looking to me for the reactions of his significant other, I was enjoying being with my new beau.
Grumpy went out of town for a week,giving me the breathing space I needed to fully commit to my new and better relationship. I blocked Grumpy on all fronts, his communications weren’t all horrible, but they were many and worrying. He obviously was taking this very badly.
After a couple of weeks I unblocked him and just got a text saying he was going to be at the next meeting. It was his birthday the day after and I had a present for him. I texted him just before the meeting and asked if we could rendezvous so I could give it to him. He met me as I was walking from my car, he was obviously trying to hold it together but not doing a great job. He opened the present and thanked me but then asked for an apology for how I had treated him. I defended myself as best I could but he wasn’t having any of it and ended up calling me names again.
I’d told New Kid that I wouldn’t be sitting with him as I wanted to sit with a friend, I’d still managed not to tell him about Grumpy, so I sat on my own. During the meeting I got sent incredibly hurtful text before I blocked him again, this time for good.
Short Stories
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It’s really interesting that you chose to write two differing perspectives of a relationship. It is a healthy reminder that there are always two sides!
Thank you. The truth is in the middle, I think.