The End
It was late at night and I couldn’t sleep. I found myself exchanging messages with The Fireman until the early hours of a Thursday morning for something to do, and it wasn’t long before he started asking questions about my current beau – Someone New. Specifically, asking questions about the definition of us. How are you meant to define and explain a relationship when you’re not even sure what it is yet?
“Hasn’t it been a few months now?” he asked.
“Yes, almost three months, but what’s that got to do with anything … ?” was my response.
“So, are you boyfriend and girlfriend, then?”
“Ummm, we’re not really labelling ourselves as anything right now. Why are you asking?”
“Is the sex good? As good as ours was?”
And that’s when I lost it. The rant went a little something like this:
My sex life is between him [Someone New] and I. What happens in our bed, stays in our bed. [Unless I’m writing all about it on the blog, obviously.] And no, you don’t have a right to know just because you know me “inside and out”, as you said. Because again, as you said, you haven’t been inside or outside of me in a very long time. A very, very long time.
My rant to The Fireman was unapologetic. Why do men think they have a right to talk to me like that? Because they do it a lot. Too much.
And then something else happened.
It was at 1:20 am that it happened. Not another infuriating text from The Fireman. Not a cute message from Someone New. The text was from someone else entirely, someone else I didn’t expect to receive a text from.
It was Jock.
“You ok?”
That was it. Exactly what he wrote and how he wrote it. I bet that must have taken a really long time out of his time to send. Am I meant to be grateful for this snippet of his time, at such a ridiculous hour of the morning? My heart stopped beating as soon as his name appeared at the top of my screen. It was a moment I’d been hoping for, for such a long time, but it never once happened. I’d dreamed about it. Wished for it. Almost begged for it. Nothing. I had resigned myself that Jock and I were over, finished, finito. The day of come-back text messages well and truly done with. And then it actually happened. The love of my life, the yin to my yang, the night to my day and other such terrible, bullshit cliches, finally got in touch with me after our devastatingly awful breakup.
I called Bestie who was sleeping in a room just twenty steps from mine. Bolt upright in my bed, with tears streaming down my face, “It happened. He messaged me…” was all I could squeak out. He knew exactly who I was talking about right away. And he was furious. Absolutely livid. He told me if Jock were to turn up at my doorstep, he’d punch him square in the face.
But why is he sending me messages? What does he want? And why not? What has he left this long to find out if I’m okay? To find out if I had CANCER? Why has he waited until the very moment I start to think I might have a future with someone else, someone who won’t break my heart and make me feel like shit, to pop back into my life and fuck shit back up again? I’m having the hardest time getting to grips with this, but you’ll be pleased to learn that I blocked the dickhead this morning. Something about that message has well n’ truly got under my skin, though. And it’s one of those feelings that feels like it might stick around. have no intention of finding out what he wants, but there is a big part of me – very big – that’s curious. Has he decided that he wants me back? Has he realised that life isn’t greener on the other side? Or is it just another drunk booty call because he’s lonely and has no one else to play with? Maybe, just maybe, he saw that photo of Someone New and I and it cut him like a knife. I hope that’s it. I hope he saw it and his heart hurt. I hope he regrets the day he did what he did to me.
Getting over him was tough; it still is tough. I want to know what he wants so badly, more than anything else in the world, but I’m in therapy because of that man and what he did to me. As curious as I am, I can’t go backwards now. I can’t go right back to the beginning when I couldn’t get out of bed and cried from beginning to end of every day. I loved him. I still love him. But even I’m not stupid enough to think he can be in my life now, in any capacity. It’s nice to think that he’s still thinking of me, but he didn’t think about me enough. He never did. After all the time that’s passed now, and after what he left me to deal with on my own, I expected more than that simple “You ok?” message he sent me in the middle of the night. I deserve more than that. And if he can’t put in more effort than that now, he’s NEVER going to be the right guy for me.
See, I feel strong now. I reckon I’m on my way over him, you know? It’s been tough, and I’m sure there are plenty more obstacles to come, but not messaging him right back was a massive achievement for me. That chapter of my life is well and truly over, and no amount of messages will change that now. I’ve moved on. I’m moving on. I’d be better off alone than back with that prick.
God, well done! Believe me, I know the strength it took t not message back! Remember you are right – if it had meant anything more than a tossed breadcrumb, he would have SAID SO. What he wanted was to mess with your head. OK, he got that, but he doesn’t know and hopefully never will, so YOU WIN this round of Game of Narcissist. Something I learned long ago in this game – quit while you are ahead. WELL DONE YOU xxx
WINNING! 😉