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“I’m going to take the bus out to my parents’,” I said.
“Are you sure? Don’t you want to wait for me at home? I’ll bring us some wine and we can watch break-up movies?”
I appreciated her thoughtfulness. Holly was a true friend. “No, I want to forget about everything. My mom will probably have guests and I’ll be able to help her.”
“What are you going to do about Sam?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know… But I’m not going back.”
“What if he offers you even more money?” Holly asked, a cunning glint in her eyes.
“It’s not about the money anymore,” I said.
“What then?”
A customer came in and demanded some service. It turned out he’d been sitting outside for a while without anyone noticing he was there. He demanded to be served at once. The waitress was at the back on her break and Holly rolled her eyes privately at me before smiling apologetically and going to get his order.
It gave me some time to think about her question.
I had always been very emotional and prone to feeling things deeply. It took an enormous effort for me to put things into words and to try to explain my feelings. For the year that I was in therapy, we had worked on techniques to describe my feelings and match them up, almost like a puzzle.
When I thought about it, my most prominent feeling right now was confusion. But it was followed closely by anger. This surprised me. I tried to think why I was feeling anger and I realized that I was angry with Sam. It was what Holly had said. He had kissed me first. I would never have done that. Even if I was thinking that way, which I wasn’t. Sam had been so nasty to me from the moment I had started working there.
I didn’t know what to make of all of this.
It was the biggest reason for my confusion. He had made it clear to me in college that he had never loved me and had merely been seeing me as a bit of fun. According to him, the relationship was never meant to be anything more than superficial pleasure. Whatever I had construed as us talking about a future or any plans we might have had, were simple flights of fancy on my part.
He had made me doubt myself, question everything I thought about myself and people around me. I didn’t trust myself around men and it had taken a very long time before I was able to go on a date with another man. I had been on two dates since breaking up with Sam. Both times I had been nervous and awkward and unable to relax.
“Jeez Louise, what a moron!” Holly came back to join me. The waitress, a sullen teenager with black eyeliner and tattoos on her neck, came back from her break to take the customer his order.
“I’m worried about you,” Holly said, suddenly serious.
“Are you going to be all right?”
I nodded. “I’m not the same girl I was back then.”
“Are you sure?”
I was.
I may not have been sure about that before, but the way I had acted confirmed it to me. I had refused to stay around to listen to what Sam had to say. I’d turned off the phone, I was ignoring him.
For the first time, I’d be calling the shots.
It felt like the tables were turning.
