Page 58 of Meet Stan

My misery had settled over my shoulders like an intangible pall. I didn’t even try to shirk it. I just let it weigh me down. I was going to call a cab when Chandler sent me a text saying he was sending a car to take me to the airport.

I texted him a thank you and sat on the stairs outside my apartment building waiting for the car, my luggage beside me. I was only going to Singapore for a week the first time. Then I would return home and settle up my lease, get my stuff packed up for shipment to my new place in Singapore, and spend some time with family and friends.

One person I wouldn’t see, no matter what, during that leg of my journey would be Stan. I decided I was done with him, for good.

The limo showed up when the sky was just beginning to brighten with the first vestiges of dawn. The driver smiled at me politely and took my luggage and put it in the trunk. I only took my purse into the back.

I wished that Chandler hadn’t sent the limo. I knew he meant well, to send me to my new job in style, but it reminded me of all the time I’d spent with Stan.

I didn't want to be reminded of Stan, not one bit.

When we were about twenty minutes out from the airport, my phone rang. Unknown number. Probably spam. I just canceled it.

The same number came up a moment later. I wondered if maybe it was someone at the Singapore office trying to reach me.

“Hello?” I said.

“Ivy.”

My heart skipped a beat. It was Stan. He sounded rough, and maybe more than a little drunk. He must have called from someone else’s phone. From the sound of it he was at a bar, and a fairly rowdy one at that.

The last thing in the world I wanted to do was hear his voice in the first place. I most especially did not want to hear him go on another angry tirade. The fact he was a bit drunk would make it even worse. He would have no inhibitions and would lay my soul bare to his lacerating tongue.

“Fuck you, Stan,” I sputtered. “Just—just fuck you. How dare you call me?”

“Ivy, I just wanted to talk—”

“Oh, now you want to talk? After you left those, thosehorridmessages on my phone? How do you—your first words to me were ‘what in the actual fuck.’ How do you say that to me? How? Do I mean so little to you?”

“Ivy, please, I—”

“No, you don’t get to talk goddamn it. You don’t get to talk.” I hissed through clenched teeth now, my vitriol only growing stronger. “You just sit there on your drunk, arrogant ass and you listen. You listen to me for a change.”

I took a deep breath, and gave voice to my pain and fury.

“Did you listen to ALL of my messages—”

“I told you to shut up! I heard enough, you bastard. I heard enough. I know you don’t want to admit it, but you and I had something real. It wasrealgoddamn it.”

“Ivy…”

“Don’t say my name. Don’t you dare say my name, you keep my name out of your goddamn mouth.” I spat into the phone like a venomous cobra. The driver raised the privacy screen on his own accord. “We had something, and you decided to squander it. Why? So you could prove a point to your friends? So you could make them think their own love wasn’t real?”

I shook my head as tears streamed down my cheeks.

“I mean, that’s just awful, Stan. That’s not a thing a friend would do.”

“I thought I was helping them—”

“Stan, let’s just end that bullshit right now.” I was still angry, but I was better able to control my tone, and the words that came out of my mouth were no less incisive for their lack of volume. “You didn’t want to help your friends. You wanted to help yourself. You wanted to ‘prove’ to them love wasn’t real so you wouldn’t have to feel like it was your fault for being miserable and alone.”

I waited for him to deny it. To my surprise, he didn’t.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. That was my motivation all along. I’m an asshole, all right?”

“At least you can admit it, I suppose.” I sighed. “Stan, I think that there’s a decent person inside of you somewhere, but you’re determined to never let him out. You let me see him a few times, but you mostly keep him bottled up. Someday, you might find a woman willing to put up with the long, long uphill battle it’s going to take to make you let that person out. It’s just not going to be me.”

I ended the call and turned my phone off. Then I held my face in my hands and had another crying fit. Thank goodness I hadn’t put on makeup. I’d look like something out of a horror movie if I had.

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