See The Imprinter, Business or Pleasure?, Spellbound, No Picnic in the Park, Squatter Love, Who Falls First?, Trouble, Purgatory, Pre-Disintegration, Sanity Takes a Turn, In Heat, Fireworks, Part 1, Fireworks, Part 2, Don't Tell Mama and Mr. Leaky for the background on this one.
A few days after the reality check with Eva, the oxytocin must have been wearing off because I was feeling pretty not-obsessed with #126. Nora and I headed to a Saturday night BBQ in Williamsburg. Eating s’mores made in an industrial smokestack, we popped squats by the tiki torches and yucked it up for a few hours with a couple of Brooklyn Unavailables, talking about what all Billyburg hipsters talk about, which is to say, nothing about sports and a lot about the last Pez dispenser they’d sold for multi-hundreds on eBay.
It was after midnight and we were getting ready to go when I checked my phone. There was a text from #126 from two and a half hours before.
#126: We need to talk...
I panicked. My first thought was the apartment. I texted him back, keeping it light.
Me: Uh oh. You didn’t give away my apartment did you?
Nothing.
I sent more texts in a desperate attempt to get him to reply.
Me: My imagination is going wild…
Me: I keep thinking of things…
Me: Are you pregnant?
Me: Are you calling the engagement off?
Still nothing. The subway ride home, although it was only two stops, was pretty much the longest subway ride ever.
When I got off at 1st Ave., I called him. He didn’t pick up, so I left a message that went something like this: “Hi, um, I know it’s after 1 a.m., but if you could call me back just to give me a quick idea of what’s up, that would be great. My imagination is going crazy at the moment, and I’m beginning to think it’s about a disease. I probably won’t be able to sleep, so call me.”
I woke Zoe up when I got home and told her what he'd sent.
"What a cunt," she said.
I slept. A little bit. At 9 a.m. the next morning, there was still no word from him. By 10 a.m., my anger was rising again. At 10:30 a.m., I sent him another text.
Me: Just tell me it’s not a disease and I can go on with my day.”
Now, #126 was not a Luddite. Whenever we were together, he always had his phone on him and whenever it made any kind of beep, ping or buzzing noise, he would look at it. There’s no way he hadn’t seen or heard one of my desperate pleas for reply.
Finally, four hours later, I got a text.
#126: Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. No diseases. Need to talk about apartment.
Me: OK. When?
#126: Not sure. When’s good for you?
Me: 30 minutes.
#126: Can’t. I’ll be near your house at about 4:45 – 5:00.
Me: OK. Then is fine.
A couple things:
1. He wasn’t sorry.
2. Why ask me when was good for me if he already knew what was good for him?
3. He’d “be near my house” in two hours? He lived a block away. Either he was sleeping with someone new or he was trying to make me think he was.
Whoever she was—if she was—I knew this much about her: she had no cat, she had a not-pee-stained mattress and she didn’t expect much from him. And if she did expect something from him, she hadn’t told him she did and was assuming it would magically materialize sometime in the distant future, which meant that sometime in the distant future, she would be sorely disappointed.
Signs of Hope: At least it's not a disease.
Red Flags: "We need to talk..."
Turning Point: When he finally responded. At least I could breathe again.
Diagnosis: For him: To send me a text at 9:30 on a Saturday night saying we needed to talk and then not being at all available to talk is a move made by a serious asshole. Upon deeper analysis, he was probably feeling a little bit like he wasn’t in control and his little Saturday-night text stunt was a way of getting some of it back.
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