good at goodbyes

It comes to me most in the morning – this stark clarity that only comes with a fresh sunrise. I am nowhere near where I’m supposed to be. I look at this boy sleeping beside me. I am nowhere near who I’m supposed to love. This feels wrong. This is wrong. But I’m in too deep and these things, they’re complicated. I can’t just pick up and leave. There are feelings invested, books and CDs borrowed and lent out, countless complications that arise when two people get into bed and start something new. Yes, it was early in the relationship but early too can be complicated when one of you is still nursing a broken heart.

I had to end it, that much was clear. The question is – how do we get out of this without any scars?

The morning picks up and we both get ready for the day. He hasn’t moved in. That makes things easy, but he has a toothbrush and some movies in the apartment. That’s easy. I can just pack it all up and ship it to him. Right as he leaves, I tell him to meet me for dinner. Somewhere nice enough that we can talk in private, but not too pretty that it would cause a scene. He stops to think about it and nods as he leaves. I clear breakfast and coffee cups off the counter and move on with the rest of my day.

I was lucky to meet him. That much I know. It was about a week after the break-up and I was drinking my sorrows away. I stumbled out of the bar looking for a cigarette. I had a bottle in one hand and my phone in the other as my arms felt my pockets for a stick. I was sure I had one left but like most things in my life, my last cigarette eluded me and so I sat on the curb resigned.

I put down my things and fish out my pack from my front pocket. My lighter fell to the street. I flipped the box open to find that it was empty. Just my luck, I guess. Just as I was about to spiral into self-pity, I started smelling the familiar scent of tobacco smoke. I looked up and saw this boy, probably in his early 20s, looking nervous as he stood dangerously close to me. I got up, smiled, placed my hand on the wall, pinning him. Our faces close to touching, he handed me a cigarette and we smoked until the pack ran out. We talked shit, our fiction mixing with reality. He told me he’s in college but with pores like that, I knew he was lying. I told him I was a nursing graduate looking for a job. We bullshit each other some more then he asked if I wanted to go somewhere quiet.

The restaurant is empty, save for a few patrons filling the early dinner slot. I had planned on being a few minutes late but figured since I was going to break his heart, I might as well save him the trouble of waiting for me. The waiter comes by and asks if I was ready to order. I choose a few appetizers and tell him we’ll order mains when my date arrives. He smiles then leaves me alone as I wait for the boy whose heart I was about to break.

How should I do it? I couldn’t tell him the truth. No one deserves that kind of heartache. I couldn’t tell him there was anything wrong with him because really, there isn’t. He’s a good kid and anyone would be lucky to be in his life. But I’m not anyone, and I couldn’t convince myself to love him – just as I couldn’t stop myself from still being in love with my ex. I could say it’s not him, it’s me but… even if it were true, that seems a little played out.

The cracks started to show as early as that first morning I woke up next to him. I had gotten used to waking up beside somebody for the last four and a half years. I hardly even thought about it. Half-awake, I reached over to his side of the bed to hug him. He moaned, signaling he was awake. He says good morning. Isn’t this a nice way to wake up? My eyes flew wide open realizing my mistake. I was in bed with someone else. 

After about fifteen minutes, the appetizers arrived. I pick up my phone to ask him where he was. The messaging app said he was online but my message was l eft on sent. Maybe he’s stuck at work or in traffic. It would have been nice for him to let me know. I retraced and decided I would call him instead. My thumb starts dialing, muscle memory briefly taking over. A familiar name pops up on the screen as the line rings – My ex. I had dialed my ex. In a panic, I hang up and turn off my phone. Cold sweat trickles from the back of my neck to the small of my back. How could I have been so stupid? 

Last night, while I was in his arms, he noticed I was crying. He stopped dead in his tracks and asked if he had hurt me. It wasn’t the angle or the timing. It wasn’t how soft or how rough he was. None of that caused me pain. How could I tell him that nothing he was doing or will ever do could compare to the hollow throbbing in my chest? How could I tell him that I had gotten used to the same man, to the same touch, to the same breath on my nape for years and I was just then coming to terms that that was never going to happen again. What would he do with that information? How could he hug that away? He held me closer to him, so tight it felt like he could crush me with his sinewy arms. And we went to sleep just like that, like two jigsaw pieces that didn’t really match, forced together by a fate too cruel to be patient.

The waiter asks if I was ready to order. I look at my watch and see that I had been sitting alone in this restaurant for over an hour. I tell him my date’s just stuck in traffic and I didn’t want to order without him. He refills my drink with a pained expression in his eyes. Could he see something wrong in me? Could he tell I was there to break someone’s heart?

I realized I didn’t even have this boy’s number. We’ve mostly communicated via messaging apps and so I never really had the need to know his actual phone number, at least until tonight. I scroll through our messages – he must have left it here somewhere. I find his number in one of our first messages and I realized it’s been a while since I could scroll to the very top of a lover’s thread.

There was some fighting at the start, mostly from him – small fires here and there like most new couples have. The beginning of any relationship is a test. You learn how much pushing and pulling you both can take before you start actually hurting each other. I wasn’t too worried about it, or perhaps I wasn’t as invested as he was or the years have made me more forgiving. The boy mistook my patience for apathy. He thought I didn’t fight as hard because I didn’t love as hard. I apologized. I’m sorry that the men I loved have made me this way. He looks me dead in the eye and asks me, why do I have to pay for their crimes?

The waiter makes a final stop at my table and says that the dinner crowd is about to come in and so wait times for entrees might be a little longer. I realize I had nursed this glass of water and these stale breadsticks for an hour and a half. I call the number he gave me. No one picked up. I tried again, and again, and by the fourth time I realized what was happening. The boy whose heart I was about to break had beaten me to the punch. The waiter asks if I was ready to order and I don’t know what came over me but I just started to laugh. Here I was thinking about how to break up with him when he… stood me up. Here I was afraid of how his heart was going to break when it was my heart, mine all along that was in for a shock. My laughter subsides and I apologize to the waiter. I ask him for the bill and he looks confused but does as he’s told. I make sure to leave a nice tip. I mean, we can’t all be heartbroken today.

As I get ready to leave the restaurant, two messages pop up on my phone. One is from my ex who asked why I called him. I struggle to formulate a response. That was a mistake. I must have butt-dialed you. Bullshit, he’ll see through all that. What do I say?

The second message is from the boy. It’s a thirteen-minute voice message. I make a mental note to listen to it at home. Perhaps this is the best outcome I could have ever hoped for. I walked away from this car crash of a heart with barely a scratch. Sometimes, you love and you get hurt but sometimes, the fates aren’t so cruel.

  ♫: Carly Rae Jepsen | Store (2016)