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But that was good. Because being tied down to the Earth meant I couldn’t float off in my head. I didn’t have time to stare forlornly at my phone, wondering if I should text him, wondering if he would text me. I didn’t like where we had left things. I didn’t like being on the outs when it felt like I had just reconnected with one of my long-term friends.
But I never texted him. Or called. I was busy, after all. I tried not to let all of it bother me. I was in my element with my work and I wouldn’t crumble under the pressure. I was a warrior. I fought to get as far as I had, and I wouldn’t let something as small as stress knock me down.
That was until the annulment papers arrived.
I had been doing so well! Just chugging through life, relentless and with my head down so I couldn’t notice anything else. Finally, I had little time to relax and I had planned to binge-watch a show while eating fudge laden ice cream and making some chicken wings too, because dammit I earned them! I’d had it all laid out when the mail had come, and I’d stupidly opened the manila envelope from an address I didn’t recognize, thinking maybe it was a contract from one of the many, many projects that I had up in the air.
But it wasn’t a contract at all.
It was the annulment, everything I had asked for. All neat and legal and looking entirely impersonal.
I couldn’t explain the cold pit in the bottom of my stomach. I had been expecting them to arrive. Heck, I had demanded that he get them to me as soon as he could. It was all there, right in front of me. All I had to do I was sign them right away and then we’d go on with our lives.
Separate.
Annulled.
Which was exactly how it was supposed to be. I would go back to normal and I wouldn’t feel like there was a feeling of malcontent to everything that I did.
Or, at least that was what I told myself. But when I actually grabbed a pen to do the deed, I couldn’t just sign them as I envisioned. I sat at my table for a good thirty minutes simply staring at the pages. They didn’t move, they didn’t provide any clarity. They just sat there, glaring up at me like an accusation.
Mickey and I hadn’t spoken in so long. I found myself itching to talk to him about the annulment. Did his lawyer give him a hard time? Was he satisfied? While part of me was grateful for the reprieve from all the complications he had brought into my life, there was another part of me that wondered why he’d reacted so strangely after our hook up in his hummer.
Sure, Mickey had always been a little clingy. A little tactile and open. He didn’t have the same walls that I did, admitting what he wanted and never being ashamed of desiring things. But that didn’t mean he could just look at me like he had in the van. Like I was the center of his world and all of the lights in the universe would go out if I wasn’t there. It was too intense. Too inappropriate for what we had.
Had.
The past tense of it all made my gut drop and I had to leave the papers alone. I was just tired, and I needed my self-care day and then I would be back tomorrow. Yeah, I told myself I would sign them tomorrow.
But then tomorrow came and I didn’t sign them then, either. I figured that maybe Mickey would want to text me once he got the confirmation that I had received them, but my phone remained silent.
Maybe he had moved on?
That thought brought back that strange, hissing cat feeling, leaving me uncomfortable and distracted the entire day, which did not bode well for my sparring and rehearsals.
So that night, as I was curled up in my bed, alone and looking at my ceiling, I wasn’t proud to admit that I kinda sorta stalked Mickey’s social media to get a read of… well, anything. And also, maybe if he did have someone new in his life. Someone like Amelia, all tall and strong and beautiful. I knew that really; I shouldn’t look at any of it -it was unhealthy. Not to mention that I didn’t have the right considering how I left things, but I wasn’t the one who had made it weird!
Was I using him for sex!? No! He just…
Oh God, had I really used him for sex? I’d never been that kind of person, but the more time that passed, it was hard to see how it could be interpreted as anything but.
