by J. Sterling
“Okay. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Feel better. Heal your stupid heart.”
“I’m trying.”
“I know. I’m just so mad at him,” she said with a groan.
“Get in line,” I shot back, although anger wasn’t the main emotion I felt. At all. I wished it were, because then I’d hurt less.
After Tami hung up, I scrolled through the pictures of Cal and me as I lay in my bed, my comforter wrapped around me. It was a habit that had at first made me happy and giddy. I’d look at them and smile before closing my eyes and falling asleep each night. Now I looked at them and wondered what the hell had happened and where we’d gone so wrong.
One day I wouldn’t need to look at them anymore.
One day they wouldn’t make me feel anything.
One day I’d forget they were there altogether.
One day I’d delete every single one of them.
Today was not that day.
• • •
It had been three weeks and four days since Cal had gone silent and I still wanted him, still longed for him, and still missed him. I wished the feelings would go away, but they weren’t fading.
I didn’t want to feel this way, but my heart refused to listen to reason. Absolutely refused. It mocked me daily, reminding me that something was missing and that we were no longer whole. As if I needed the reminder.
I didn’t. I felt the loss with every breath.
Surprisingly, my mind liked to remind me that something was missing as well. I figured at least one of them would be on my side. When your heart and mind joined forces and worked against you, it was a wonder how a person could function at all without falling apart. The two of them warring against each other was one thing, but having them team up on me was something else altogether.
It was brutal, to say the least.
Fuck you, heart.
Fuck you, mind.
I knew what I’d lost and didn’t know how to get it back. But what really pissed me off the most was the fact that neither of them were helping me get past this. Shouldn’t I have been over him by now? Why wasn’t I well on my way to post-Cal living? How was it that I was still counting the days since I last heard from him?
I should be angry and bitter; I should hate him. But I felt just the opposite because I didn’t stand a chance when my heart and mind worked against me. Or because I was weak. Or in love.
And I didn’t want to be either of those things because I wanted to be strong and a force to be reckoned with. Who the hell reckoned with a weak woman who cried every night over some guy who most likely wasn’t even worth her tears?
This pity party needs to stop, I yelled at my mind, and then I gave my heart a stern talking-to.
Neither listened. They never did.
So I drowned them out with alcohol before realizing that alcohol lowered all my defenses and it made me miss him even more. I almost sent Cal another text before I had the gumption and self-awareness to stop myself. Thank God. I didn’t need any more reasons to dislike myself lately.
My cell phone pinged, signaling a text message, and I grabbed for it too quickly, knocking it to the floor. Groaning, I reached down and picked it up, seeing the dark blue smiley face staring back at me.
One dark blue smiley and my heart leaped into my throat with hope and fear. My thumbs were clumsy, fumbling as I tried to press the button to read the text. They were as desperate as my heart was.
I miss you.
My phone pinged again.
I was an idiot.
And again.
I’m so sorry.
Can we talk?
Texts came through at a rapid-fire pace, filled with apology and want. But they weren’t from Cal. They were all from Brandon, my ex-boyfriend.
Disappointment ripped through me like a hurricane. These messages stabbed me in the heart, each one assaulting me as it arrived. The words were all things I wanted to hear, but from the wrong guy.
All the right words. From the wrong guy.
Right words. Wrong guy.
Wrong guy.
Wrong guy.
The texts kept coming, the blue smiley face taunting me each time he appeared, and I was suddenly struck with violent urges that included smashing my phone with a hammer.
“Stop fucking smiling at me,” I yelled at my phone, but it pinged again to torment me.
I scrolled through the options and changed my ex’s icon to a black frowny face. I laughed at myself as it appeared, feeling victorious, as if I’d just won some secret battle. Battle of the text notification icons.
Take that, cell phone. You shall no longer smile at me! Only frowns from you!
I didn’t respond to Brandon. I had nothing to say to him, and I couldn’t have cared less about his feelings in the midst of my own. But when his texts turned into calls, I groaned and typed out a quick message.
Jules: I don’t think there’s anything to say at this point, Brandon. It’s been a long time. I’ve moved on.
Brandon: Moved on? You have a new boyfriend? I thought you didn’t have time, Jules? What the hell? Who is he?
Damn it. I’d said too much, hoping that it would make him go away, but I should have known that it would only wound his pride. How could I shut this down as quickly as it had come about?
Jules: I just meant that I’ve moved past us. I’m still just as focused on my work as ever, probably even more so. I would really rather not rehash the past.
I pressed Send and prayed he’d buy into my line of bullshit and go away.
Brandon: You don’t even want to talk this out?
Jules: There’s nothing to talk about.
Brandon: So you don’t want to see me?
Jules: No. I’m sorry, but I don’t.
I should have felt worse about being so blunt, but I lacked the desire to be anything else. The last thing I wanted was to rehash anything with Brandon, someone I hadn’t sincerely thought about in forever, if not longer.
Brandon: You always were selfish. I don’t know why I bothered. Forget that I sent these texts.
A year and a half ago, that message would have stung, even if it had been true. Today, it elicited absolutely no reaction from me. I didn’t care that he called me selfish. I didn’t care if he believed that I was. All I wanted was for Brandon to go back to wherever he came from and leave me the hell alone. I wanted him to stop texting, to stop calling, and to not want to see me.
And then it hit me—what if that was exactly how Cal felt about me?
Welcome, Bitterness
Jules
When I told Tami about Brandon texting me, she almost had a coronary on the phone. She was proud that I nipped the situation in the bud so easily, and that Brandon had literally gone away as quickly as he had tried to reappear.
When I asked her if I was too mean to him, she laughed and said that while she had always liked Brandon, she knew he wasn’t the right guy for me. Then she reminded me how lazy and unmotivated he was, and how if I ended up with someone like him, I’d be a miserable shrew by forty who spent her nights plotting ways to get away with her husband’s murder.
She was the best. Mostly because she was right and I didn’t want to go to jail.
After weeks of Cal-induced pain, I started to feel differently. I realized that my heart hurt a bit less than it had the day before. The disappointment of Cal being gone was no longer this crushing weight that lived inside my chest. I considered that progress.
And then I got pissed.
Really pissed.
Why the hell had I been chasing Cal? Sending him texts that he didn’t respond to? Pining over him like I had nothing else better going on in my life? Why was I the one doing all the reaching out when I wasn’t the one who left in the first place? And if I was doing all the running, then who the hell was running after me?
I shouldn’t have to chase after a guy to make him want me. And I shouldn’t have to remind or convince him that I was what he wanted. He should already know that, withou
t question. So why the hell was I treating this guy like he’d hung the moon, when he’d so clearly done anything but?
I really needed to get my head on board with what my heart clearly had already started to figure out. When was the last time my brain was the one left behind? Usually my heart was the last one to catch up, but not this time.
With a sharp intake of breath, I made a decision—there would be no more chasing after Cal Dumbass Donovan. My running shoes were off and tossed in the garbage where they belonged.
The once stabbing pain in my heart had lessened to more of a dull ache. It was still a constant presence, but it was much more tolerable than what I’d been experiencing. Originally I thought I was going to have to fill the hole in my heart with something else to get the hurt to stop, like binge-eating copious amounts of dark chocolate or Taco Bell nacho cheese.
Turned out that, thankfully, neither were required. Time had been the only remedy I needed. Even the lingering question of why he left lacked the emotion that was usually tied to it. I found myself almost not caring about the answer at this point.
Almost.
The indifference vanished quickly and was replaced by anger. I wallowed in my anger, relished it. It made all the hurt stop. Being mad was a relief, but I had to stop myself from grabbing my phone and texting him things like “Fuck you!” and “You’re a coward!” And by stop myself, I pretty much meant that at least once an hour I had to talk myself out of berating him via text message or e-mail.
Anger, how I loved you. Until I started feeling like a fool. He’d made a fool out of me and he probably enjoyed how stupid I was every time I’d sent him a text, all but begging him to reach out to me. I hated myself after each one I sent, but it was pure torture to not know what the hell had happened between us. I kept hoping he’d finally tell me something, give me anything to work with, some sort of logic to process.
But that never came.
So he gave my heart no choice. It had to get pissed to survive.
Opening up the message window in Facebook, I scrolled to our messages. The last one I sent him where I had been pathetic and fairly drunk still sat there unread. Unread, even after all this time.
I started typing, all my anger coming off my fingers like venom from a snake bite.
You’re a total prick face, you know that? I mean, WTF, Cal? Where the hell are you and why don’t you give at least ONE fuck about my feelings? How can you just disappear on me like this and NOT CARE AT ALL? I’ll never understand that. I don’t get it. How are you so okay when I’m nowhere near it? Did it all mean nothing to you? Because that’s the only thing that makes any kind of sense. Unless you’re just a complete fucking ass-face, which I haven’t ruled out yet. I hate you. Have I told you lately how much I hate you? Because I do. You suck. I hate you. I hate you. I fucking miss you. I hate that I miss you.
I stared at my words, my feelings typed out so disorderly like word vomit across the computer screen. I pressed the Backspace button, watching as each word vanished.
I’d never intended to send him another message he could ignore; it simply felt good to yell at him, to get my emotions out of me and into the open. Even though it felt like I was yelling into the wind, never to be acknowledged, I still needed to release the words.
It was in moments like these that I still couldn’t believe we would never, ever speak to each other again. It seemed so unfathomable to me that this had happened. My mind sometimes refused to wrap itself around it all, like the reality was just too much to comprehend.
Reaching for my phone, I typed out a text message.
Jules: You’re such a fucking coward. I never pegged you for being so weak. I’m glad I got out when I did. I don’t miss you. I hate you.
I wanted to press Send—God, how I wanted to press that button. Whatever had happened, he should have been man enough to just tell me. I was a big girl, I could have handled it.
My finger hovered over the Send button on my phone. I was tempted to deliver the words that would give me a moment of sick satisfaction, but I ended up pressing Delete instead.
Any communication from me at all made me the weaker of us, and I was tired of playing that role.
Five Weeks, One Day
Jules
Five weeks and one day, that was how long Cal had been gone from my life. I only knew this because I checked the calendar at work today and actually counted how long it had been since he’d disappeared. Somewhere between the routine of going to sleep at night and waking up each morning, I’d stopped keeping track of the days.
I no longer looked at the pictures on my cell phone either. One night before bed, I’d transferred them to a storage album online where I kept copies of all my digital photos. I’d kept two of my favorite pictures of us in my actual phone gallery, but I’d stopped looking at them.
And when I did happen to see them in my gallery, they elicited nothing from me. My breath no longer caught in my throat, my heart no longer stuttered, the wind no longer felt knocked out of me.
They had simply become memories, a part of my past, which seemed strange now. I had been so sure that that particular time would never come, that I’d always be affected by Cal’s leaving, but I had been wrong. It no longer hurt, and for that I was grateful. As time passed and I realized that he was gone forever, a feeling of contentment had settled over me, or maybe it was acceptance. It happened so slowly that I hadn’t even noticed it until it was all that I felt. I had finally accepted that Cal was gone . . . and I simply didn’t care about the rest anymore.
It was blissful to be free of the hurt.
“So, there’s this restaurant and bar re-branding on Beach tonight, and we got invited,” Tami singsonged in my ear as I drove home from an evening house showing. “I know it’s last-minute.”
“Sure,” I agreed all too quickly. “Let’s go.”
“Wait. Sure? You’ll come without me forcing you to? Oh my gosh, are you finally over that dickhead completely?”
I couldn’t help but bristle at the term. Even with everything that Cal had done to me, I didn’t consider him that. Sure, I’d had my moments when anger consumed me and I hated his very existence, but I didn’t feel like that anymore. Every emotion tied to him felt like I’d experienced it so long ago, even though it really hadn’t been that long at all.
“Do you want me to come out with you or not?”
“Yes, yes. Sorry. He’s not a dickhead.” She faked a cough. “Meet you there?”
“I just need to change,” I said as I glanced down at my pants suit. I looked fine, but it wasn’t what I wanted to wear out to a bar in Santa Monica.
“See you in a bit,” she said before giving me the exact location on Beach Street.
I was actually excited and looking forward to getting out of the house for something not related to work. I’d been burying myself in house showings for weeks now, and I needed a little reprieve.
After rushing home to change, I pulled up in front of the restaurant and was thankful they had valet parking for the evening. The last thing I wanted was to deal with parking and walking numerous blocks in the heels I was wearing. My yellow sundress dipped low in front, emphasizing my cleavage as I waltzed into the bar like I owned the place. I felt as good as I looked, and I reveled in that fact.
Tami waved at me, grabbing my attention immediately as I weaved through the crowd toward her seat at the bar.
“You look hot,” she said. “And I ordered us both a drink from the themed menu. Here’s yours.”
She pushed an orange drink toward me. I picked it up and sniffed at it before taking a tentative sip.
Taking in her bright pink irises, I said, “New contacts?”
“Less devilish, right?” She winked and I laughed.
“At least these are truly pink. How many compliments did you get before I got here?” I knew damn well that guys would compliment her on her eyes, no matter what ridiculous color they were.
She rolled her eyes. “Just two. One from the
guy at the door and the other from the bartender.”
“Oh, Tami, your eyes are amazing,” I said, mimicking a delusional male’s voice. “I’ve never seen anyone with neon pink eyes before.”
“Jealousy doesn’t look good on you.” She grinned at me as I let out a howl of laughter, but then her smile faded. “So, I’m sorry to bring him up, but I have to know. Are you totally over everything? I’m only asking because you actually seem okay.” She placed her hand on mine. “And I mean that in a good way. In the best way.”
I nodded. “I know you do. And I am over it, as much as anyone can truly be over something like that. I’ve given up the notion that I’ll ever hear from him again. Which is a little weird to say out loud, but it’s true.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“I can’t make him want to talk to me. And I shouldn’t have to. So I don’t know if I’m okay with it as much as there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve finally accepted the reality of the situation, and I have to move on.” I shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“I still don’t understand what happened, though,” she said, pouting.
“Me either. But honestly, I don’t even care to know at this point. It doesn’t matter anymore.” I sipped at the orange cocktail. It was really good, the citrus flavors hitting my senses immediately, but not in a bitter or overly sweet way. It was the perfect balance of flavor. “This is delicious, by the way.”
“You don’t care about why he left? Really?” She cocked an eyebrow.
“I’ll never know why. And honestly, I don’t need it anymore. I wanted it desperately for so long, you know I did. But I literally woke up one morning and just . . . didn’t care.”
“I would have gone off the deep end, I think.” She looked up at the ceiling as if lost in thought. “Like right away.”
“I’ll tell you one thing. When you have absolutely nothing to work with, you tend to jump to a lot of conclusions. You make a lot of things up. My mind is not my friend in situations like these.”