This is getting out of hand. But I think (hope) that we’re about half-way there now. If you need a recap, check out parts one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven before moving on.
We woke up the next morning and went to breakfast with Jay and Mel. Not a one of us was feeling too grand at that point.
I had started to wonder if maybe the boy’s drinking was rubbing off on me. I had never been one opposed to a good time every now and again, but my life before the boy felt like it had consisted of far fewer hangovers. I went from having a glass of wine with dinner one or two nights a month (and the very occasional celebratory night of one too many), to kicking at least a few back at a time two or three nights a week now.
And this morning marked the second time I'd been hungover with him in just two weeks.
At 28 years old, this was not how I wanted to be spending so much of my time. My drinking days had long since passed, and I missed the weekend mornings of waking up and feeling refreshed and productive. It was summer time in Alaska, and I wanted to be out in the sun exploring. I wanted to be running, and hiking, and biking and maintaining the good health I had been blessed with just a few months before.
I didn’t want to be nursing hangovers with a rising consistency.
Still, I just kept telling myself to get through the next two days. That life would normalize, if we could just get through the next two days.
After breakfast, Jay and Mel offered to take the boy home since they lived out in his direction. I went back to my place and crawled into bed, sleeping most of my day away.
We hadn’t talked about whether or not we would be seeing each other that night, and I wasn’t sure how he was feeling or where his head was at given how withdrawn we had all been that morning. I had already taken the following day off work, and he knew that. It wasn’t that I had any intention at all of going with him to court (because of course I didn’t!), it was just that I wanted to be home and available for him that day if he needed me.
It would be the first time in months he would actually be seeing her.
Face to face.
For the official nail in the coffin of their marriage.
Given how much time we had spent talking about this, I was genuinely worried about how he was going to handle the whole thing. And I just wanted him to know that I was there. That if he wanted to come over after and cuddle up in bed to talk, or cry, or block the rest of the world out with me – we could.
Still… we had no set plans and I wasn’t sure when I would be hearing from him again.
I was definitely in hands off mode at this point. Thinking that we had spent the previous two nights together, and it would make sense if he wanted some space this night. The night before the actual end. But around 7, he called me asking if I would come over and spend the night with him. He said he just didn’t want to be alone.
I got there, prepared for what I was sure was going to be a difficult evening. But while he was quiet, and reserved – he wasn’t broken down in the way I had expected him to be.
We laid out his suit for the next morning, talked for a while about how everything was going to go down, and then put on a movie to watch before heading off to bed.
We didn’t drink that night. But we didn’t touch either. At all. We slept on our own sides of his California King bed, with so much distance between us; it would have been comical if it wasn’t so sad.
I was prepared to comfort him. But he never really broke, so instead – I just followed his cues.
Keeping my distance, while also maintaining my presence.
The next morning he got up and walked to the shower. Stood in the bathroom without saying much of anything as he got ready.
I sat on the bed watching him. Matching his silence, but still letting him know I was there.
As he dressed, I was surprised to find myself thinking about how handsome he was. He is a pretty man. Probably one of the prettiest men I have ever dated. With piercing blue eyes and perfect skin and this jaw line that just… made me melt.
Which doesn't even begin to touch on what taking his shirt off did to me.
And there he was, this man who I was already so attracted to. Dressed in a suit for his divorce. Looking more dapper than I had ever seen him.
I cracked some joke then, about how nice he looked. Asking if he was at all interested in a pre-divorce blow job.
I had wanted to get him laughing, so when he did – I breathed a sigh of relief.
We joked back and forth a bit more before he took one last deep, calming breath.
And then we both walked down the stairs to his kitchen and out the door to his garage. Getting into our separate cars as we said our goodbyes and he promised to call me as soon as everything was said and done.
The appearance before the judge had been set for first thing that morning, so when I hadn’t heard from him by 10, I sent a text letting him know that my stomach was in knots and that I was worried about him.
I couldn’t imagine that divorce proceedings could take all that long, especially between two people who didn’t have children and hadn’t even bothered to get lawyers involved.
All I could do was picture him somewhere by himself. Hurting and breaking down.
And it left me a pile of nerves thinking there was nothing I could do to help.
About an hour later he called.
He actually sounded like he was doing alright. He said that the judge had been 20 minutes late, but that once they got started the entire thing lasted no more than 5 minutes. I knew he was disgusted by that - just by how quick and easy it had been to get divorced. He seemed more upset about that than anything else.
From the sounds of things, he had held it together pretty well throughout the entire process. I do know the play by play of everything that happened in that room, and after, but in writing it out I realized that part is their story. Not mine.
It's not something I have the right to share here.
I do know that after everything was said and done, he decided he wanted to see his dogs. He loved those dogs with all his heart and talked about them all the time. But he hadn’t seen them since she left just a few months before. He had known that facing her would be too difficult, and hadn’t wanted to prolong his pain.
Now that he had seen her though, he decided he wanted to see them too. To be able to say his goodbyes.
He told me that was when he finally cried. When he was with his dogs, acknowledging the fact that it would probably be the last time he would ever see them.
He had called me as soon as he left there. And after recounting the details of his morning for me, he said he had decided he wanted to go in to work. It was the middle of the busy season in Alaska, and he had things to get done. Items he could turn his attention to.
I was proud of him.
Of how well he was dealing.
Of how strong he seemed to be in this moment.
I was proud of how he had handled everything.
Proud to know him.
And proud to call him mine.
It was official.
He was divorced.
And in my mind, that meant he could finally start healing.
I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a sigh of relief on my part at that point.
A part of me that felt I could stop looking over my shoulder; fearing what would happen if she changed her mind.
If he was faced with a choice between her or me.
I went about the rest of my day attending to chores I had been neglecting in the previous weeks of taking care of him.
Confident in the fact that from here on out, things between us were going to start building in a healthy direction.
So when he called me that night and asked if he could come over, I told him that of course he could.
This was the start.
The start of us.
When he showed up, he seemed fine. Amazing actually, considering. We were joking and laughing and everything was good.
I was happy he wanted to be with me. Happy to know that for the previous 3 nights, it had been me he wanted by his side as he navigated his way through this.
And happy that now that it was all over, it was me he still wanted to curl up in bed next to.
Besides, I knew he was heading back out to the remote work sight the next day. I also knew he was going to be gone this time until the 4th of July weekend. We were about to have almost 3 weeks of physical separation.
I would take as much time with him as I could get.
He got to my place a little after 10:00, and we were just sitting in bed talking and laughing. Everything seemed fine. He didn’t seem distracted or withdrawn or pulled away at all. He was engaged; telling some stupid story that had me laughing almost to the point of tears. And he wasn’t even drinking. He honestly seemed like he was coping so well.
Allowing myself to believe that was my first mistake.
And I was about to make my second.
I reached out to him and made some comment about a little post-divorce nookie.
I was half kidding. Playing off on the laugh we had shared over a similar joke that morning.
But there was part of me that was serious too. Part of me that really wanted to connect with him in that way. Tonight. Before he left. Sober.
Because the truth of the matter was, we really hadn’t had sober sex since right before she sent him that text.
I wanted to be with him. To have him looking in my eyes. To know that it was me he was with.
But my timing was all off.
Because he immediately looked at me and said "I don't want to have sex."
Or at least, that was what I wish he had said.
The truth is, what he really said was “I don’t want to have sex with you.” And there was a venom attached to that “you” I’m not sure I could appropriately put into words if I tried.
I was stunned. Shocked into silence. Feeling as though my cheek must be red, because clearly he had just slapped me.
Hadn't he?
Confused, I said. "But… we just had sex two days ago? You couldn’t keep your hands off of me?"
To which he looked at me and simply replied “I was drunk.”
I was amazed at how quickly he had turned so cold.
And I was so unbelievably confused. Unsure of what was going on here. It was one thing for him to not be in the mood. That made sense. And in fact, it had been stupid of me to even bring it up on this night. I had just mistakenly trusted in how OK he seemed to be. But the fact that we were even here having this conversation at all… it was my fault. Because my timing had been all off.
Still… it was something entirely differently for him to be saying he didn’t want to be having sex with me.
And suddenly, it felt like a door had flung open. Because he just kept talking.
He told me that he would never have any feelings for me beyond friendship. That he was 100% positive of that fact. That he loved spending time with me, but he knew those romantic feelings I wanted him to have just weren't there. That there was nothing about me that made him want anything more.
He didn't stop there though. He kept going. Saying these things that made no sense at all.
He was making it sound like I had made everything up in my head, and he had just gone along with it because it had seemed like the thing to do. Even though in reality, we had embarked upon the conversation of "us" more than a few times, and it was always me saying we should step back and just be friends and him saying that wasn't what he wanted.
He was making it sound like I was stupid to have ever believed he felt anything more for me.
And I just kept sitting there. Taking it.
Until I couldn’t anymore.
I took a deep breath and proceeded as calmly as I could, but I finally started calling him out. Telling him that if what he was saying was true, he had been sending me a lot of mixed signals. I told him that I don't have sex with my "friends". That I don't spend night after night cuddled up in the same bed with my "friends". I reminded him of what we had before she sent that text. Of every conversation we ever had where he told me exactly the opposite of what he was saying now. And I pointed out that every time he had gotten drunk in the last few weeks, for some reason I had been the one he couldn’t stop thinking about. Couldn’t stop himself from calling.
I told him that I thought that meant something. That I thought it all meant something.
But he told me that all it meant, was that he had been lonely.
He said he liked my companionship. And he liked having someone to be with. But that he wished we had never slept together at all because he didn’t want to lose my friendship - and he knew he would never feel anything more for me than that.
I was trying so hard to keep it together. To be calm, and cool, and collected. The whole time I had Jay’s words from just a few nights before running through my head. Jay telling me how into me the boy was. How much he liked me. But how scared he was of whatever that meant. That's all Jay kept saying - that the boy liked me so much I scared him.
But here the boy was - literally telling me he didn't like me at all. Using those exact words. "I don't like you."
A week before he was telling me he loved me.
And now, he just kept repeating “I don’t like you.” Over and over again. Even when I wasn’t saying anything in return. He just kept saying it. Like I was a kindergartner on the playground trying to steal kisses from him, rather than the woman he had shared a bed with and been supported by for the past 2 months.
"I don't like you."
Not even "I don't love you."
Just "I don't like you."
Still, I was holding it together. Grasping at straws to keep things from spiraling out of control. My mind was racing, but my voice and my demeanor; they were both so calm. I just kept thinking that he had just gotten divorced that day, and that this wasn't a conversation we should be having right now.
I told him that if everything he was saying was true, that the mixed signals needed to stop. That we could be friends, and I could contain my feelings, but that we needed first and foremost to stop sleeping in the same bed. We needed to stop cuddling. And I needed to stop being the first number he dialed every time he got drunk and dropped those inhibitions.
I told him that it didn't make sense to me. That I didn't understand how he could tell me he cares about me so much and that he loves spending time with me, but then in the same breath tell me that he would never have any romantic feelings for me. We had sexual chemistry, I knew that. So I couldn’t figure out where this was coming from.
And I told him that.
But then, he started crying. Like, really crying. And suddenly, I felt awful. I can honestly say I’ve never actually had any guy I was ever dating cry in front of me. And I didn’t know how to react. His eyes had definitely watered up in front of me a few times, but this; he was actually crying. And I felt guilty for that. Because he had come over in a fairly good mood, and here he was crying. Because of me. Because I had somehow plunged us into this topic of conversation without ever actually meaning to. Crying because he said he never meant to hurt me, and he was angry at himself for taking my feelings so for granted.
And crying over her. Over his divorce.
He was just sitting there crying, and suddenly, I found myself trying to comfort him - even though he had just dumped me in a pretty brutal way.
It was ridiculous.
I know it was ridiculous.
And then, it got even more ridiculous.
He said he was leaving. It was almost midnight, and he started getting up to go. I told him that was silly. Not to be dramatic. That we did need to stop sleeping in the same bed, but at this point - it was the middle of the night. His office was less than a mile from my house, and his place was a 40 minute drive away.
I told him not to be crazy.
But he was already packing up his stuff. Getting it all together. Crying the entire time.
Which is when I started crying.
Or at least, trying to cry. Because I felt like I should be. I felt like now would be the time for tears.
Except, I couldn’t. I sat there as he was packing up thinking to myself that my reaction to all of this should be tears. I was silent, not saying another word, thinking about the fact that I really should be crying.
Not because I wanted it to have an effect on him, but because... that was how a normal person would be reacting right now.
But I just couldn’t make them come.
And suddenly, that was all I could think about. The fact that I wasn't normal. That I wasn't capable of normal human emotions.
He's getting ready to leave, and all I could focus on was my inability to cry.
Don’t get me wrong – I was hurt. More hurt than I had been in a long time.
But, I was also numb.
Shut down.
Emotionally stunted.
This has of course been an issue in my past. I really struggle with showing emotion in the appropriate context. I have had complete meltdowns over breaking my curling iron or stubbing my toe, but legitimate tears over a broken heart?
They don’t come easily to me.
And certainly not in front of the person who's doing the breaking.
So I just sat there, pretending to cry. While he packed up everything he had already taken out to get ready for bed. A bag full of belongings that was supposed to last him the next 3 weeks. I knew he hadn’t planned on this happening, but now it was. And he was packing. And crying. All the while ignoring my own faux tears.
Neither one of us saying a word.
When he got to my bedroom door with his bag in hand, he paused for one second. And then without even looking back at me, he said "The problem is, I'm a guy who had a perfect life. More than anyone else could ever ask for. And now... I don't have any of it."
At which point, he only started crying harder.
And then he walked out the door.
No goodbye. No hug. No nothing.
He just left me. Sitting on my bed. Pretending to cry.
I sat there for a solid 5 minutes, trying desperately to determine what had just gone down.
How things had slid out of control so quickly.
In my head I knew how stupid I had been to let myself think for even one second that he was doing alright that night.
How could I have been so naïve?
I knew I should have been more on the lookout for signs that he was crumbling.
And I also knew that he had needed someone to lash out at.
I just happened to be the closest person in sight that he could hurt.
It was inevitable.
Almost pre-destined that this was going to happen that night.
I never should have let him come over at all.
But then I’m sure that would have set him off as well.
He was looking for this. An excuse and a reason to hurt me. To push me away. To break anything good we had.
I recognized it, because it’s kind of a signature move of mine.
Push the people who care the most away when it feels like the world is spinning out of control.
It’s how I lost the ex.
I got it.
And I knew, in my heart, that we weren’t over.
But I also knew that nothing about what had just happened was OK.
I was still numb.
Shocked.
Stunned.
And unable to cry.
So, I got up. Walked to the front door and made sure it was locked behind him.
Then I went back to my room, turned out the light, and crawled into bed.
Just before I closed my eyes, I turned off my phone.
Intentionally making it clear that I did not want to speak to him when he called.
Because more than anything else, I knew that he would.
(To be continued…)
ADSPACE
