I rip the half unzipped boots off my feet and run.
I bolt out the door after Jackdude, my everything, the love of my life. NOOOO!! Don’t go! Why are you leaving? What just happened?? I haul my drunken ass after him, but he’s faster and I’m out of shape and he easily outstrips me, yelling something I can’t understand as he becomes ever smaller in the distance until he winks out around the corner.
What the hell just happened? I have no idea why he walked out, though I do have a vague uneasiness it has something to do with the music guy I was talking to in the bar. But I don’t really know, and I am running down an empty road after midnight desperately chasing after the man I had started to build my world around. My heart, my life, my everything is actively running away from me and I’m dying inside.
I race to his house and knock…POUND POUND POUND on the door but there is no answer. Why won’t he talk to me? Please, please PLEASE just talk to me!
The door remains shut, the white rectangle an evil barrier keeping me from my One True Love. I hate that fucking door. It glares smugly back at me, you ain’t going anywhere, honey. Yeah, Mr. Door, I’ll shove an axe right in your…
Wait, is this why guys think women are crazy? But I don’t chop down the door, I know enough not to impose myself on someone who doesn’t want me there. Mr. Door McSmuggington wins, and I concede, slinking away in defeat. I miserably walk back to my house and lumber up the stairs. I fall into bed.
I text.
I text.
I text.
I call.
I text.
I call.
I call.
I text.
Nothing.
I pass into a black slumber, phone silent in my hand.
I open my eyes to a blank ceiling, and for a moment I think everything is okay until I suddenly remember what happened last night, and the reason I am alone in bed.
He’s gone.
Absent.
Out of my life. Cue Michael Jackson song.
I feel cavitated, like all innards have been sucked out. I’m an empty drum. A blown eggshell. An abandoned house in a ghost town. A vacated adolescent beer party after the cop raid. You get the point.
I’m not crying yet. I’m in shock.
If I can just talk to him, just explain…but I know he’s not coming back. I know there will be no forgiveness, no mercy. Red flags stalk in formation in my head, marching, marching, glaring, with their snide comments ringing in my brain like a smug mechanic having already warned you dammit you need to get this work done before you drive but you blew up the engine because you drove it anyway and you should have known better because I TOLD YOU SO and you are now the proud owner of a car-shaped paperweight.
Monica, YOU KNEW!! You knew this was coming.
He said he has no friends. Ever consider why?
He is completely estranged from his ex.
He hasn’t spoken to his dad in five years.
He constantly talks about how weird other people are. He’s the only normal, level-headed guy on the planet.
This man is a a complete hermit, an island.
A lone ranger with a drinking problem.
Did I really believe he was going to change? That I would be the one person to break through to this guy?
And I lie there alone, a sledgehammer pound against the inside of my skull the only reminder I’m still alive. Jackdude is gone. My body feels like it has been vampired, all content sucked out. The love of my life is irrevocably missing, and I’m left holding an empty bag with a big question mark, because I STILL DON’T KNOW WHY!
My phone blinks to life, but I know from the tone it’s not Jackdude. Do I even care who it is?
hey! Howyadoin?
Fundude.
I pick up the phone and text back: Jackdude just walked out on me.
Instantly: Come over.
Ahh, what the hell. I could use a friend.
And I drag myself up out of bed, pour a cup of caffeine and paste myself together, a corpse barely connected, dead woman walking. I can’t function. I drive the mile to his house. I catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror.
Oh.
Bad idea. My eyes are puffy from alcohol, yet sunken from lack of sleep. I’ve gained weight from all the trips to the bar, and a bloated reflection stares back at me. Pathetic. Fuck it. What does it matter anymore? I climb out of my car anyway and go knock on the door.
It opens to a surprisingly genuinely concerned Fundude, who immediately says he’s so sorry. Anyone around me long enough for me to get the words out knew I was madly in love with Jackdude. He embraces me in a big hug and I finally start to cry. The levee breaks and I am overwhelmed with the pain of it, why oh WHY can’t I ever get this right? I hate myself for whatever it was I did that made him leave. Fundude just holds me while I heave half the Atlantic basin out of my eyes and onto his doomed T-shirt, and I am grateful for his friendship and care. We finally separate, and I explain what happened. “Monica, that doesn’t sound right.” Well, what about it? “What could you possibly have said? You remember everything up until you walked in the door. You were taking your boots off. What are you missing, a few seconds? That couldn’t have been more than a sentence.”
Hmm, true. What could I possibly have said in one sentence that would make Jackdude pitch the entire relationship? I remember joking about the musician in the bar, but that’s it. What in the hell happened? And since when do I drink enough that I can’t remember my words? But I know exactly since when, it’s since Jackdude. And the red flags continue their chant I told you so!
Fundude wants to kiss me, wants to get intimate. He’s all…friends with benefits? But that’s never been what I wanted. I just wanted to be in love, and my in-love guy is now dearly departed. Fundude says I’m like a wounded fawn. I know he’s teasing me, but the sad part is, I kind of am. How in the hell did I get from rising phoenix to wounded fawn? Something is seriously wrong with the way I’m navigating my life. My captain is asleep at the wheel, and I’m at the whim of whatever wind happens to arise, wherever it happens to blow me (Yeah, I said blow me. Get over it.). Then I connect my ship to someone elses, and now I’m going in their direction, never mind where I wanted to go. I did it in my marriage, I did it in the church, and I’m doing it now. It’s no wonder I wound up a wounded fawn. PATHETIC! I hate that I keep repeating this pattern. I want to go to Miami, but keep winding up in Antarctica. I don’t want to buy any more parkas and snow boots!
I gave up everything for my marriage, and it bombed. I gave up everything for the church, and they kicked me out. I’ve been giving up everything for a significant other, and the bachelor with the rose just sashayed out my door. I keep giving all of my time and energy away to these guys, and they use me up like a ten-dollar meth addled Louisiana hooker on the last day of Mardi Gras, leaving me with nothing but a headache and a pair of stained underwear. He brings me coffee and consoles me, but I am quite inconsolable. I finally leave and get ready for work, the show must go on. Even zombies have to work.
Theorizing this must have something to do with the musician I was chatting with in the bar, I draft a six page persuasive speech worthy of the Magna Carta to Jackdude detailing my moral code, that I never would cheat on him, it’s not in my character… my God, if I was gonna cheat, wouldn’t I have done that in the marriage I was trapped in so long? But I didn’t, and I’m not a cheater, and I am faithful… I even add a picture of the guy to prove that he was a young twentysomething I wouldn’t be interested in at all, and I lobby for our relationship in this sickly desperate novel I’m sending to him.
No response.
Then I get the idea to stuff a note in his door, and I scrawl HEY I LOVE YOU AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I SAID THAT MADE YOU LEAVE on a piece of notebook paper and leave the hopeful request at his place.
Hours later my phone chimes the tune I’ve been waiting for.
It’s him!!
I excitedly grab my phone and read…
Worship Leader Gone Wild 