You made your bed. Now lie in it.

January 29, 2011

“I’m leaving,” she said, standing unevenly her head lowered looking away from me.

She was supposed to spend the night and leave tomorrow. I wasn’t surprised though. I knew she was going to leave early. She was a coward. If she wouldn’t, I would have asked her to leave anyway.

“Ok,” I reply unimpressed.

I just wanted all of this to be over. The sooner she was gone, the sooner I could start moving on with my life. She looks at me and shakes her head disappointed with my reaction. Tears roll down her cheeks as she turns her head from me and begins walking to her car. Did she expect me to beg her to stay? I was just as eager to get her out of my life as she was to throw me out of hers.

I kiss Philly and spend more time saying goodbye to our puppy than I do telling her goodbye. What could I possibly have to say? There are no words. Besides, the dog never told me I had problems or insinuated that I wasn’t good enough. He just loved me. Funny, I had thought she felt the same.

I had always known that it would come to this. I knew that she would someday leave me because the truth was; I loved her more than she loved me.

“Bye,” I said noncommittally.

“Bye,” she said rolling her eyes, hurt. “I love you.”

“I loved you, too. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough.”

I give her a quick kiss. My lips touched hers for a millisecond. When she realizes that is all that is going to happen, she sighs, opens the car door and sits in her car seat. I tell Philly how much I’ll miss him, how he’s the best dog I’d ever had and to be a good boy. I then turn and give her a couple more kisses, drowning in the tears streaming down her face.

I refuse to cry in front of her. I refuse to give her the satisfaction. She made this decision on her own with no negotiation whatsoever. I am not going to cry. Frankly, I don’t understand why she is crying either. She got exactly what she wanted. If anything, she should be smiling ear-to-ear like a Cheshire cat.

“I’ll call you when I get home,” she says, buckling her seatbelt.

“Ok,” I respond, unsure if I will answer her phone call.

I walk past her car and up my driveway. It’s done, I think to myself. Over.

I sit in the kitchen while my mom flits around, waiting for my inevitable breakdown. I begin to cry so hard I can’t catch my breath. I felt like a giant was standing on my lungs, daring me to breathe. My brother, Nicholas, stands behind me and wraps his arms around me suffocating any breath that lingered inside me. I imagined it was the last bit of her being squeezed out of my heart.

“I just don’t understand!” I scream. “I don’t understand. I am completely bewildered. I would have never expected this from her. I’m sick and she leaves me? I need help and need to work on my problems but maybe if I am better in a year, we can be together again? She’s saying I’m not good enough for her right now but come back in a year; maybe I’ll be good enough for her then.”

“Exactly,” my mom says.

“Marilyn Monroe is famously quoted as saying, if you can’t handle me at my worst, you absolutely do not deserve me at my best. I am not always going to be like this. I fell down two years ago and it’s been really hard to try and stand up again. She doesn’t deserve me. She ended things on her terms but we will get back together on mine.”

“Good girl,” my mom says nodding. “I’m so sorry. I know what it’s like to be told you weren’t good enough.”

“Can you believe she said we’ll see each other in a few weeks? She wants to meet up to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans.”

“What is she, whacked?!” my mom stares at me in disbelief.

“I had the same reaction. Not only do I not want to talk to her for at least a week, I can’t fathom seeing her any earlier than Easter. She can call this long-distance all she wants but the truth is, she left me. She gave up on us yet she wants me at a distance and to be able to see me whenever she wants. I am not a toy. I am not to be picked up and played with whenever she misses me and placed back down in Houston, four hours away, when she’s had her fill of me.”

“Things have always gone her way. I am partially to blame because, I loved her so much; I let her get her way. I spoiled her rotten. No more! Things are going my way now. She wanted me to get better? I am already halfway there and from here on out, things will never be the same again. I will no longer be her punching bag or carpet to walk all over. She wanted the old Christina back? She got her. And she’s pissed off like hell and back to not taking shit from anyone.”

“Welcome back,” my mom says, smiling.

She calls me four hours later telling me she’s arrived home.

“Did you block me on Facebook?!” she says incredulously. I can hear her laughing at me, like I was the one being immature. Would it be so absurd to delete her as a friend? She loves reading my Facebook profile and seeing what I’m doing. If she wanted me living four hours away, she was going to get exactly what she wished. No visibility into my life at all. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to Skype with her either. Why should she get the privilege of seeing me? Wasn’t that the point of me moving to Houston?

“No, I deleted my account.”

“Oh … why? Because you were sick of it?” she guesses.

“Yup,” I said.

The truth was I deleted my account because I am humiliated. There I was, ten days earlier, laying on our Comfy Sak thinking we were so happy together when she dropped this bomb on me saying we needed to talk and that it wasn’t that bad. We were the couple that people strived to be like. I was screaming to the world on a daily basis how much I loved her and she didn’t feel the same. I am embarrassed to admit my failure to my friends and family. I feel so ashamed. I don’t want anyone to know I am living in Houston. Not one of my friends in Houston knows I’m here and I intend on keeping it that way.

“Well, is it ok if I call you later?” she asks.

“Ya,” I lied, already knowing I would ignore her phone call.

11:24 “Are you sleeping?” her text reads.

I send her a text in return that I had written hours before. I should have said this to her before she left to go back home to Fort Worth but I was so mad, I couldn’t bring myself to talk to her at all. On the drive to Houston, we sat in deafening silence for four hours. No music, no words.

“There are no words to express my level of disappointment in you. I’m sick and you leave me? If I had been sick with cancer instead, would you have left me? Clearly, you would have. Were the roles reversed, I would have never left you. There is nothing you could do to make me give up on us and make me leave you. You can call this a long-distance relationship but what really happened is you left me. You decided you were more important than us. If you can’t handle me at my worst, you absolutely do not deserve me at my best. You made this decision entirely on your own with no negotiation whatsoever. You didn’t give me the courtesy of giving me a month to tie up loose ends with anything or anyone. You’d been thinking about this for weeks but told me at the end of the month and gave me four days to pack up my life and leave. You can tell yourself whatever helps you sleep at night, but the truth is actions speak louder than words. You gave up on me. You gave up on us. You don’t want to be with me now but maybe in a year when you decide I’m good enough for you? You didn’t even want me living in the same city as you. A step back in our relationship would have been me moving out and living alone. The few bad times outweigh the years of good times? You ended our relationship on your terms but we will get back together on mine. I don’t wish to talk to you for a week. You don’t get to see me whenever you feel like it and decide you miss me. I don’t wish to see you any earlier than Easter. Please leave me alone. You made your bed, now lie in it. Be happy. You, like always, got your way. This time it’s once and for all.”