Page 49 of Meet Stan

I swallowed the lump in my throat, but it came right back. Stanley nodded curtly and stormed to the doorway.

He stopped, hand grasping the door frame with white knuckle intensity. For a moment I thought he was going to turn around and tell me he’d changed his mind. That he did want me as much as I wanted him and it was all a terrible mistake.

But he didn’t turn around. He just stood there, facing away from me.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. This is my fault. It’s all my—”

And he broke away out the door and vanished. I sat down in my chair, feeling as if I had a lead weight tied to my heart. It struggled to beat. It was as if the heartstrings were snapping one by one and it would just drop down into my feet somewhere.

I’m not sure how long I sat there. It must have been quite a while. The clouds broke and sunlight filtered in through the gray dreariness to spot the ground below with bright places.

None of those bright places seemed anything but very far away. I found it an excellent metaphor for what was going on inside of me.

My phone dinged. I saw I had a message from Stan and instantly my hopes soared. Had he texted me to make amends? To call off the entire fake breakup and declare that this relationship was now real?

I checked the message.

Sorry things got messy and complicated. I’ve transferred additional funds into your account to make up for the inconvenience.

Inconvenience. Inconvenience? The phone shook in my hand. Anger boiled up inside of me. Sorry things got messy and complicated. Was THAT what he was feeling? Messy and complicated? That’s it, that’s all?

Maybe I was feeling messy and complicated, too, but it wasn’t all I was feeling. I grew increasingly upset as I read and re-read the message. Giving me extra money, like paying off a whore? And then calling the whole thing ‘inconvenient.’

I hurled my phone across the room. Fortunately—or unfortunately as I’d been in a mood to break something—it hit the sofa cushion and slid down to stick up, half concealed in the upholstered fissure.

I held my head in my hands and sobbed out of anger and frustration as much as hurt. It really sucked that I couldn’t really tell anyone, either. I couldn’t seek solace from friends or family about a relationship that hadn’t actually ended yet. Or fake ended. It was so tangled up in my mind that I couldn’t stand it.

I began to wish I were one of the raindrops speeding toward the street below, where oblivion awaited. Let me just hit the sidewalk and melt away into the sewer…

I shook off that feeling. No, I was going to see it through to the bitter end. If he wanted an epic breakup, he was going to get one. I was going to pull no punches. I was going to lay it out for him exactly how much I’d been hurt, and how much contempt I had for him in not only letting it happen, but then referring to it after the fact as an inconvenience,

I’d show him some inconvenience. My tear-streaked face contorted into a sneer. I would show him exactly what he wanted.

I was going to give him the epic breakup he wanted, claws fully extended. It wasn’t much to go on, anger and revenge, but it did keep me going through a very dark moment.

Now I was dying to pull the trigger. If I could only make him feel one ounce of the pain I did, it would have been worth it.

Chapter Twenty

Stan

I didn’t sleep much the night after I told Ivy we were pulling the trigger on the whole fake relationship thing. It was time for the dramatic breakup, and then we would be free to go our separate ways. No more of all this fighting not to care. It would all be over.

I stood at the window looking out on the city below for hours. I kept trying to tell myself it was all for the best. After all, love never lasted. It was just a dopamine increase in the brain, nothing more and nothing less.

But I was having a very hard time convincing myself. All I wanted to do was call up Ivy and tell her how I really felt. Yet, I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t real. I’d been fooled by the ruse just as much as my fellow partners.

Now it was time to make a painful, but necessary separation. I had to cut through it no matter how painful it might prove to be.

I’m not sure if I ever actually slept that night. I may have dozed on the sofa some, but for the most part I sulked all night. I only really fell into something akin to a deep slumber about ten minutes before I got a call that stirred me despite my lack of rest.

I opened my eyes, then immediately shut them against the brightness of the dawn. All the rain clouds were gone, and the sun shone, to my estimation, obnoxiously bright.

I grabbed the remote and changed the window tint to help block the horrid emanations and checked the phone screen.

The phone call came from my mother.

My mother only called on the holidays, unless she needed money. I never minded giving it to her, but she always acted like she put some terrible burden on me. On her salary, a new transmission would devastate her savings. For me, it represented an hour’s interest on my weaker investments.

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