Oh, geez.I had to pull myself together before it was time to host study hours, and I couldn’t bother Robin—she was home with a newborn.
The ache of no longer being able to text Mr. Good Time whenever Robin wasn’t available—or wouldn’t understand—filled my chest.
“Did the last three years mean nothing to you?” I’d sobbed, unable to control the tears after he told me he not only wouldn’t help me but was also ending our relationship.
“Yeah, it meant a good time. Just like my profile said. I’m sorry if you read anything more into it. But this has always been about sex. Only sex. You suddenly wanting more from me doesn’t change that. Fuck! We had such a good thing going. Why did you have to ruin it?”
He’d acted like I’d somehow misunderstood the parameters of our relationship. And maybe I had. During the last months of mulling it over, I could kind of see where hissuddenlyaccusation had come from.
But if it was just about sex…
Why did he ask for exclusivity?
Why did he hold me after makeup sex and let me prattle on about everything going on in my real life without reminding me about the agreement?
Why did he always answer my texts on the Fetder app—even when I was just venting about a bad day?
Why did he remember my favorite students' names and sometimes even ask how they were doing?
Why did he always bring up my dream to open my own school when I felt like giving up?
Why did he encourage me through the last of my grad school finals the week before our hotel room rendezvous?
No, he’d never let me see his face, but the last text message I’d gotten from him on the Fetder app had said,“I miss you. Good luck finishing up the paper for your Motivation and Emotion course. Can’t wait to see you on the other side.”
He always remembered details like that.
Robin had tried to explain the whole fuckboi concept to me when she came back to Vancouver after spending the holidays with Vikram’s family in Calgary.
But I still couldn’t reconcile it, even though Mr. Good Time hadn’t texted me once since abandoning me in that hotel room last December. Was I really crazy? Had I just imagined the real connection I thought we had?
I’d done such a good job shoving down what he’d called “ending our arrangement” and what I continued to call “the breakup.” But as I ran to my room, trying not to cry until I was behind a closed door, the questions spun like a tornado in my head.
This truly was the worst spring ever.
My already low frustration tolerance had hit empty, and the next stop was ripping off my mask and screaming into my pillow—just long enough to ugly cry for exactly 40 minutes before I hadto clean myself up and pretend I was fine while overseeing the dorm’s mandatory study hours.
And I planned to use every single minute. I’d been trying so hard not to feel sorry for myself. But on the cusp of 30, it felt like my life was slipping through my hands.
I guess the universe had other plans for me, though. Halfway through my cry-fest, I was cut off by the ping of my private phone. Which was quite unusual these days. Robin always texted me on my school one. And our mom had opted for back-to-back cruise life since Robin and I moved from Pittsburgh all the way to the other side of the continent in Canada.
I picked up the barely used phone to find an email notification from the account I only used for Family and Friends.
Or I guess I should sayFriend. Since moving to Canada, I’d only managed to make one: Holly Winters, the other Black American in my online infertility support group.
And weirdly, the message was from her.
It was an invitation to a “Joining Ceremony.”
In some place called Bear Mountain.
seriously, the worst spring ever
. . .
gideon
Vintage eighties’ hair rock. Blasting. Woke me up before my alarm.
