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“Who’s Zach?”
“Jesus, B! The fucking bartender! Snap out of it!”
“Oh, sorry. Hello, Zach.”
“Good girl. See you tonight. Wear something slutty. I love you!”
“I love you, too.”
I ended the call and stared at the arched window above the garage.
See, Ken? Even Juliet tells me she loves me. What the fuck is your problem?
It only took me about two minutes to grab the few things I’d been keeping at Ken’s house. A bottle of Jameson. A few cans of beer. A lighter. A toothbrush. A handful of travel-sized toiletries from under his bathroom sink. Every room held a little piece of me, but just like my presence in Ken’s heart, it was a lot less than I’d realized.
The only signs I left that I’d ever been there at all were the framed pictures of us on the mantel—the ones I’d put there in the first place—and my key on the kitchen table.
Good-bye, house, I thought as I locked the front door and pulled it shut behind me. I’ll miss you.
As I drove to my parents’ house, I wondered what Ken would think when he got home from work and saw my key sitting there.
Would he even notice? Of course he would. Fucker had a photographic memory. I couldn’t move a coaster without him noticing.
Would he realize that it meant I was breaking up with him? Probably not. That would require him to interpret my feelings, which would be like asking a blind man to describe the color chartreuse.
Should I go back and leave a note? Set up a time for us to talk in person?
You know what? Fuck that, I thought and reached into my purse.
I was exhausted. From school. From work. And from chipping away, day and night, at the fortress Ken had built around his heart.
But it turned out, there was no fortress.
There wasn’t even a heart.
“Hey, Ken. I know you’re at work. I just…wanted to let you know that I came by and got my stuff after school. Like, all of it. I know that breaking up with somebody over voicemail is considered a shitty thing to do, but I figured you, of all people, might actually appreciate it. This way, you won’t have to talk about your fucking feelings, which you’re obviously incapable of doing, or—I don’t know—maybe you just don’t have any. Either way, you made it abundantly clear this morning that you don’t feel the same way about me that I feel about you, so I’m gonna stop wasting my time now. And yours. My key’s on the table. Bye, Ken.”
Click.
I tossed the phone back into my purse and felt a tiny glimmer of hope—just a speck, like a piece of glitter in an ocean of self-pity—but it was there. I’d survived yet another breakup, and this time, I hadn’t even thrown anything or slapped anyone or gotten kidnapped at gunpoint or anything.
I was going to be okay.
No, I was going to be better than okay because I was going to get a new man, a fun one—one who drank and smoked and had more tattoos on his knuckles than ties in his closet—by the end of the week. And, if there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that the best way to get over a man was to find another man.
As quickly as fucking possible.
