“Did you even think of how I would feel when I heard that you two had sex? I didn’t even get to hear it fromyou! I had to hear it in the locker room from girls who don’t know you half as well as I do.”
“I didn’t—”
“No, you didn’t,” I sharply cut in. “What about the first time you cut me off and blocked me? You never even gave me a warning or asked me how I felt about never talking to you. I had no idea if I was your friend anymore or if we’d ever talk again. Was it even hard for you to cut me out just so you could get some? Like, was her vagina magical or something? Was it worth the possibility of losing me forever?” I finish my rant, my quick heartbeat pulsing in the fingertips death gripping the phone. If he was here, I swear I’d smack him across the face.
Tense silence rings over the phone. Guilt for berating him creeps in as my eyes moisten. The long silence breaks with a sigh on his end.
“Char,” he squeaks softly, voice breaking.
I can almost hear his brain churning to find the right words, but I don’t care. I want to hang up on him to make him feel a shred of what I feel right now. What I’ve been feeling this last year each time he’s discarded me like some piece of trash only to be pulled out as a second option. I rarely explode or feel my emotions like this, leaving me inappropriately armed for how to handle the violent thrash of them inside me.
Who knows what’s gotten into me lately, but even if it’s a bad thing, I don’t care. It feels good to allow myself to fully feel for once. These emotions surfacing as of late are making me feel like a new person, and I’m going to embrace it. I’m not going to shy away from my feelings anymore. I’m not going to let him walk all over me and use me when he wants for his own emotional comfort.
Thoughts I've always pushed to the side keep popping up the longer he stays silent, driving the anger to embed itself deeper. Steady tears drip down my cheeks from anger and hurt, and I don’t care if he can hear it. I hope it makes him feel worse.
“Let me come over. I’ll explain it all to you better. Please don’t cry.”
“I-I-I’m n-n-not crying,” I stutter, unconvincingly.
“Char,” his voice quietly breaks again.
“Stop calling me that! I’m not your Char right now.”
Ben calling me his special nickname for me is the last straw. I don’t want him to be able to feel close to me right now by using my name his favorite way. That was a sweet name he’s always called me, but he’snotallowed to use it right now. He doesnotget that privilege after treating me like I'm disposable.
He sighs heavily again over the phone. Not an angry or irritated sigh, but one more out of empathy. In the rare times I've cried from anger, usually from when Iaccidentally hurt myself as a kid, he would sigh like that and then give me a big hug. When I was younger it helped me get over the emotion quicker and made me feel better, but now the thought of him hugging me just ticks me off more.
“Charlotte, I want to explain this all to you in person… if you’ll let me.”
“Explain what, exactly? What is there to explain, Ben?” The anger’s edge softens at his pleading tone, a small shred of guilt surfacing again for still being so short with him, but I hold onto it, nonetheless. This whirlwind of emotions is exhausting.
“A lot of things. I just… I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while now. But I don’t want to do it over the phone.”
“What, did you get Tree pregnant or something?”
A ball rises in my throat, an overwhelming wave of nausea hitting me and dread that my accusation might be true.
“Jesus Christ, Charlotte, no. If you’d listen to me, and let me explain, then you’d understand.”
He’s treating me like a child being scolded. The nerve of this guy.
“Donottalk down to me like a child.”
“Then don’t act like one! Be an adult and let’s have a fucking conversation!”
“Don’t you swear at me Benjamin Beltre!”
“We’re eighteen, Char. Damnit, we can swear. You don’t have to be a goody-goody forever. You’ll run into plenty of adults at college who swear, and you’re going to have to listen to it.”
I pause, taken aback by how he’s talking to me. He’s never sworn directly at me, and he knows how much I hate swearing.
“I’m going to let you cool off, and we’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”
“No.”
“Really, Char?”
“No. I don’t want to talk to you tomorrow. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
