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Charity grabs my phone. “Ew. Why is Jackson texting you?” Eyes wide, she looks up at me. “I’m over here trying to set you up and here you are…” She trails off as she opens the text message to read it for herself. “Tell me you are not drunk-texting this hopeless asshole.”
“How could I drunk-text anyone? I’m not even drunk.” I snatch my phone from her. “And no, I didn’t text him.” Frowning faintly, I open the text to see what Jackson wants.
The message reads, “I need to see you.”
“Don’t you dare text him back,” Charity says. “You dumped him. It’s over. He sucks.C’est lafuckingvie.”
My grip on the phone tightens almost protectively as I text him back to ask what’s wrong.
I can’t be like Charity when it comes to things like this. She has dumped plenty of guys over the years, so it’s nothing to her. Like ripping off a Band-aid. Jackson is only the second guy I’ve ever dumped in my whole life, and I let the relationship drag on for three months past the time of death hoping to avoid it. I don’t like being dumped, either, but I would’ve preferred if he got bored and dumped me instead of makingmedumphim.
It didn’t work, though. Jackson is a workaholic. I’m not even sure he noticed I pulled back until a couple of weeks before I finally got up the nerve to end things.
Honestly, I didn’t think he would be too bummed about it by the time it happened. We hardly even saw each other anymore. We texted a few times a week, but even that wasn’t daily anymore. We were barely together, hanging by a thread. I didn’t think he would care when I finally snipped it.
In the moment, it didn’t seem like he did. He seemed stunned, but not sad. I think his ego took a bigger hit than his heart. Jackson is successful and attractive. People like him, and he’s just not the kind of guy a lot of women dump.
For me, though… there was always something missing with him. Our whole relationship felt almost rehearsed, like a scene he’d run through with countless other women. There was nothing special or personal about it.
We didn’t connect on any deeper level, we just spent time together. It didn’t even feel likespendingtime together, really, it felt likepassingtime in the same vicinity as one another.
It wasn’t what I wanted. Since I knew we couldn’t meet one another’s needs, I finally called it.
I suppose because there was no big dramatic end, no final incident to pound the nail into the coffin of our relationship, it came as a shock to Jackson. I also don’t think he’s ever really been told no—by a woman, at least—and he responded as if I’d spoken to him in tongues.
Once the shock passed, he started texting me again. Wanting to know why—was there someone else? There had to be someone else, right? Why wouldn’t I just admit there was someone else?
He got a little pushy about it, needing to believe this scenario he’d made up entirely in his own head to explain why I didn’t want to be with him anymore, so I finally stopped responding to his messages altogether.
It has been weeks since I last heard from him, and given the tone of this first message he’s sending me tonight, I am not excited to hear from him again. Dread churns in my gut as another text from him pops up.
This one reads, “What if no one ever loves me?”
I sigh, reaching for my drink and taking a big gulp. Then I text him back, “That’s absurd, Jackson. You just haven’t met the right girl yet, that’s all.”
“I thought I had,” he responds.
I try not to feel guilty, but it’s hard.
I remind myself it’s no one’s fault if two people are poorly matched. It’s better we acknowledged it and let each other go so both of us would have a better shot at finding happiness elsewhere.
Besides, if the way he treated me was the level of attentiveness he would devote to “the one,” then I feel a little sorry for anyone whoismeant for him.
Another text comes through. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
I’m less sure about how to answer this one. I text back, “You don’t have to be alone. Meet up with some friends, go out.”
“I’m already out. I need to see you. Please, you owe me this much.”
He almost had me until that last part. I make a face at my phone, instantly turned off.
I don’t owe him shit.
We dated and then we stopped because it wasn’t a good fit. The end.
Iowehim.
He’s got some fucking nerve.
