“Oh, Idefinitelykicked her out.” He laughs, and there’s a cruel edge to it. “She’s so fucking annoying. Believe me, I didn’t want her here any longer. I can’t stand her, actually.”
“And you said if she did come back to get her stuff she’d have to suck your dick. That’s what you said in an earlier message.”
“It’s a figure of speech.” He rolls his eyes. “I say it to my guy friends, too. Shut up or suck my dick.”
I furrow my brow. The words coming out of his mouth aren’t computing for me. “I have never ever told any of my friends to suck my dick—or eat my pussy—if they talk. Especially if they’re someone I’d actually slept with. That’s just insane.”
He lets out a frustrated sigh and shakes his head as if I’m a complete idiot. “It’s a common saying around here. Calm down.”
Now I feel crazy. The rest of the day has been fine. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.
He hasn’t been running off behind my back or anything, and there’s no way they’ve been spending time together. I don’t see texts from her saying anything inappropriate. I’m just really hurt that Timmy reached out to someone who he—based on what he told me—can’t stand, telling them he misses them. And who he—based on his recounting of events—kicked out of Matty’s apartment. But to her, he tells a completely different story.
“So she’s this insane that you think you can half suck up to her and she’ll do what you want?”
“Something like that,” he says, shrugging. “I just wanted her to get out of our lives.”
“By proactively contacting her and saying that you miss her, and you were angry because she left your apartment?”
He sighs. “I know, I know. Again, that all made sense to me while I was drinking. I’m sorry. Believe me, if I never see her again I’ll be very, very happy. Why would I do anything to fuck up what you and I have? You’re the only one for me, and she’s a complete mess. I wouldn’t touch her ever again with a ten-foot pole. Believe me.”
I look at him, but his face reveals no answers. “If you say so.”
The morningafter I see the message on Timmy’s phone, I wake up with a knot in my stomach that feels like it’s taken up permanent residence. I try to shake off the lingering sense of betrayal, but the words I read—“I miss you”—keep looping in my mind, like an earworm I can’t dislodge.
I get out of bed quietly, leaving Timmy sleeping soundly beside me, and shuffle into the kitchen to get a glass of water. Usually, I find it refreshing, but today it does nothing to cut through the fog of unease. I stare out the window of Matty’s apartment, watching the world wake up, people going about their business as if everything is normal. But nothing feels normal for me anymore.
Timmy's excuses echo in my mind:
"I was drunk."
"I just wanted her to get her stuff."
"It’s better to attract flies with honey."
The words swirl in my thoughts, pulling me deeper into confusion. If she’s as annoying as he says, if he really kicked her out and can’t stand her, why did he reach out to her? And why does it seem like he’s still holding onto some kind of lifeline with her, even if just to keep thedoor slightly ajar, keeping her on the back-burner in case things don’t work out with me? The dissonance between his words and actions is starting to scrape against my sanity like nails on a chalkboard.
When Timmy wakes up, he immediately senses my tension.
He pulls me close, pressing kisses into the crook of my neck, murmuring sweet things that usually make me melt. But today, they feel hollow, like he’s trying to smooth over a crack in the foundation with cheap plaster.
“You’re still upset, aren’t you?: he asks softly, his arms tightening around me.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak without my voice cracking. “It just… it doesn’t make sense, Timmy. If she’s out of your life, why did you need to text her and say you miss her?”
He pulls away, rubbing his eyes like a child who’s woken up too early. “I already told you. I was drunk. It was just to get her to pick up her stuff, babe. That’s it.” His tone carries a trace of frustration, like I’m overcomplicating things.
“Okay, but it just feels... off.” I pause, trying to find the right words. “If I did that—if I texted some guy from my past and said I missed him—you would lose your mind. And you know it.”
He stiffens, his frustration now visibly bubbling to the surface, as if I’ve caught him in an awkward truth. “You’re really going to hold that over me forever?” he asks, as if it happened years ago, as if I hadn’t just noticed it the day before. “It was a stupid text. It meant nothing. I thought we were past this.”
It feels like every time he’s upset about something, he gets to keep mentioning it over and over again. But if I dare to bring something up, I have like a five-minute window before I’m ‘going on about something that happened ages ago’ and ‘rehashing the past’.
I swallow hard, feeling the familiar push and pull—the yearning to let it go versus the nagging suspicion that letting it go means ignoring my gut. Part of me wants to believe him, wants to push away all the discomfort and just enjoy the good moments. But the other part of me, the part that’s been burned before, knows that ignoring the signs only leads to deeper wounds.
He senses my hesitation and changes tactics. He picks up Sabre, showering him with exaggerated affection. “You know what you need? Bacon and eggs,” he announces, setting Sabre down gently. “Let’s start the day off right.”
I nod, grateful for the distraction, even though the pit in my stomach hasn’t gone away. “I’ll get it this time,” I say. As I crack eggs into a hot pan, I focus on the hiss and pop of bacon. Cooking feels like the only thing I can control right now. The food sizzling in front of me, at least, follows predictable rules.