Page 30 of Ghosted By Texas

“We’re not strangers, Becs. We’ve just been estranged for a while.”

“You didn’t even know what I do for a living five minutes ago. Do you even know if I have siblings or parents who are alive?” I asked to prove my point because I’ve never talked much about my parents and didn’t recall telling him a thing about them before. He swallowed and continued to stare, knowing that he didn’t have those answers.

“You knew a college girl who was just about to go start her life, and barely at that, because you were too selfish to really get to know me, and too preoccupied with the other people in your life to ask the simple questions.”

Austin sat there with a look of deep concentration on his face as if he were diving through every conversation that we ever had in his memory.

“Did you know that we met on my birthday?”

His head snapped back up and his eyes seemed almost glassy as they met mine. “We met at a Halloween party,” he reminded me.

“October 30th is my birthday. It fell on a Saturday that year and no one wants to attend a Halloween party on Sunday and be too hung over for class the next day. Well, that’s not true, but they held it on Saturday anyway. It was my twenty-first birthday.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why would I?” I shrugged it off. “We just met, and I didn’t want anyone treating me weird that night. Plus, birthdays were never something my family celebrated.” That wasn’t strictly true. My parents celebrated one another’s birthdays every year with special dates. I got a card, sometimes with money in it, and a pat on the head. Kind of a ‘good job on surviving another year, kid’ acknowledgment.

“See Austin, we don’t know one another that well.”

“When is my birthday?”

“March 12th, I rattled off.”

“You knew my birthday.”

“Yes, because it was coming up soon, and I was trying to plan something for you.” Again, he focused inward as if trying to recall something.

“You asked when it was, didn’t you?” I nodded. “And at no point in that conversation did I ask when yours was?”

It was my turn to think back. The shake of my head made his shoulders slump before I could remember why he hadn’t asked. “You got a phone call, and it distracted you because you didn’t seem inclined to speak to whoever it was while I was sitting there.” Jordan had been the only reason I could think of for why he wouldn’t have spoken to someone in front of me, so it had soured the rest of the evening, whether he knew that was why or not.

“I remember now. It was Jordan and I didn’t want you upset that she called during one of our dates again.”

“Like I said, too occupied with other, more important people, to get to know me.”

“I swear to you, it wasn’t like that.”

“If it had been one of your male friends, you wouldn’t even have answered that call while we were out. That’s a fact because I watched you decline calls from them and even from your brothers before when we were on dates. You never once declined a call from her, though. That was the first time I put two and two together about whose calls you were answering, since I’d seen the screen the other times to know who you were ignoring.”

“You don’t understand. Jordan was upset with me back then because she didn’t think it was fair that she had to leave town. Then, when she came back, it pissed her off that she couldn’t just come over to the apartment and hang out the way she used to. I was dealing with her emotional shit because I felt like it was me who caused it.”

“That’s just it, Austin. I warned you it would happen before we ever tried to have a relationship. You promised it wouldn’t because you guys were taking a break, but it never really stopped with her. You were always at her mercy, and she never let you forget it for a second. We were on a date, getting to know one another, and you made her the priority when you took that call. It will always be that way. There will always be an excuse, even if you don’t realize that’s what you’re doing. She will always be your first and last choice while I get lost somewhere in the middle. I’ve lived my entire life being someone’s afterthought, I won’t throw myself into dating someone who will make me an afterthought for the rest of it, too.”

“If Jordan was a man, would you feel the same way, that I was prioritizing her over you if I accepted a phone call when I knew she was upset?”

“If Jordan was a man who you had slept with, yes.”

“If it was just a platonic buddy?” He asked, clearly exasperated that I’d insinuated a sexual relationship with a fictional man, instead of getting his meaning. I got it, but I was making a point that he needed to grasp.

“No, because like I said, you didn’t answer those calls, so I would have assumed it was important.”

“It was important, Becs. Jordan was going through a lot, and I was the reason life was hard on her.”

I laughed at him. “The ‘a lot’ Jordan was going through was having your dick unavailable to her and you breaking her heart by dating someone else. That made it entirely inappropriate for you to answer her phone calls while we were on a date. It could have waited. It’s not like you couldn’t see who was calling.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Back then, I was in a horrible position because my family was on my ass about what I’d done to make Jordan so sad and why I had to be so heartless toward her. She was falling apart, too. Then there was you who demanded that I cut her out completely.”

“Whoa! I never made that demand.”

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