- Mom caught us fucking the night of my 21st. Well, right after he came. Like she was waiting on cue.
- Not the same vibe from when he gave me a Christmas I-love-you and a red beanie. We’d only been dating for three months and it took me until February to say it back.
- We’re on Federal Hill, eating credit-card-maxed lobster tails at Cassarino’s and we run into Jordy who I used to visit at Roger Williams. He’s our waiter.
- We saw Anastosha at Elmhurst Pub. I get the feeling they know each other’s bodies from the way his neck wraps around hers when they hug as friends.
- He called me a bitch, again. This time for wanting to leave a house party early.
- It’s a quiet walk back to his apartment except for when he tells me he’s sorry. Again. And again. I just want to orgasm and fall asleep watching a movie we’ve already seen.
- He’s super concerned about my period. I sweat him for two days saying I’m late before announcing we’re in the clear after shitting up his bathroom. I knew it was coming.
- I won’t text him goodnight because I want him to wonder if I’m at this party I told him I was on the fence about.
- Graduations are the worst, especially when you palm your boyfriend’s face, so he stops asking you what’s wrong. Right in front of his Aunt Trixie, too.
- The asshole won’t even respond to my messages. Constant updates of Prague this and Prague that, next stop…backpacking through Budapest. I can still see you.
- The moment you realize men are trash after getting driven by a high school ex to a dark parking lot near Boom Island Park after three drinks and a pithy wanna-go-somewhere…
- Finally, a text asking me how I’ve been.
- It’s from the Városliget Zoo. Before I can respond, he sends me a photo of a lemur resting on his shoulder. I nearly forget how he’s shut me out these three weeks.
- I meet him at The Biltmore. After the make-up sex and the mistake of saying we loved each other, again, he intentionally farts for the first time in front of me. Room service filet.
- Anastosha hung out with him that weekend I was in Minneapolis for Easter break. Pizza and Natural Born Killers were all. He tells me that, at least. Pizza and a movie.
- He texts me every twenty minutes now, Just saw a really fat squirrel…Just heard that if you eat pineapples…I’m on my lunch break and I was thinking…Are you mad at me…Answer.
- He pitches the clean slate method, this time over the phone, saying I could take back my I love you, all of them if I wanted. He won’t take his back though, and it feels heavy.
- I feel so Goddamn heavy.
- It’s an hour later and I can’t wait another week to say to his face that I did something with Jordy—Cassarino’s Jordy.
M.C.G. is a writer from Northern Virginia.
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