“I’m so sorry, Jake… I’ve made terrible mistakes… I didn’t mean for all of this…”
I let out a heavy breath.
Fuckkk.
There are moments when life strikes you down and leaves you cold to the bone. Walking into my apartment to find my girlfriend in tears over a guy that wasn’t me was one of them.
The shock in her gaze and the way she froze like stone, as if she was caught red-handed, was a jagged knife in my chest. That one look at her told me more than I wanted to know. And him—his apologetic energy was a punch in the gut, and the way it somehow held…ownershipover her made it even worse. The saddened, yet relieved way she spoke when she showed up in California to “talk.” She was so certain. So fuckingsure. It was like looking at a different person entirely.
Those beautiful brown doe eyes of hers were no longer questioning and wary, like I’d always known them to be. She had this new light to her that was bright and confident. The kind that said she finally knew what she wanted, knew exactly who she was supposed to be, and where she belonged—and it wasn’t with me.
The worst part was that I couldn’t even be mad at her for it. I’d only ever wanted her to be sure, to be happy. I just thought I’d be the one to give it to her.
That’s what kills me the most—how I could never spark that light in her, no matter how desperately I tried. No matter how supportive or understanding or fucking helpful I tried to be, she was never that certain about anything with me.
I never asked for the details. I never wanted to know what happened with him or why what we had wasn’t enough. Maybe it was pride. Maybe I just didn’t want to know. Who cared about the details? The fact was that we were over.
It took me a while, but I finally figured out the role I played in Sydney’s life. It was nothing like what my blind ass thought.See, I was the filler. The bandage she pressed over the wounds she refused to show. She hid everything so well, I didn’t realize it was a disguise. And it worked, because I never asked questions. Truth is, I don’t think I ever knew who she really was. I never knew her pain, her joy, her dreams, or the person she wanted to become.
I only knew what little she let me see. And like a starving child, I ran toward every crumb she tossed my way, my eyes closed to everything else.
I stayed in California far longer than I planned. What started out as a snowboarding trip with the boys became a drunken, sulking mess of self-depreciation.
I missed three finals, two of which I was able to make up over the summer, but Professor Stanley here is a stickler. It could be because he’s also my advisor. He swears he has a duty tohelp me reach my fullest potential—whatever the hell that means. He demanded an in-person meeting when I got back, which is when he told me making up his final wasn’t an option. Instead, I’d be missing graduation and retaking his entirefuckingcourse this fall.
So here I am.
Annoying as it is, I don’t regret not returning on time. I couldn’t come back to Texas after everything that happened. I needed time and space to clear my head. I didn’t want to be in the place that was once ours without her. I didn’t want to feel the ache of her absence or the pain of my failure in the space we once called home. Avoiding it while I drowned my liver was a way better option in my opinion.
My boy, Brian, was the first person I spoke to about the breakup, but even then, I only shared the facts—Sydney left, fell for some other guy, someone she knew from her childhood. Yeah, I’m good. It’s whatever.I’ll figure it out.
The term “facts” is obviously a stretch considering I’mnotokay. Not even close.
When I eventually made my way back to Austin, the first thing I did was move out of my apartment. I didn’t even break the lease, I just left, paid the last two months, and saidfuck it.
Brian connected me with some lacrosse guy named Nate who had a room for rent. Brian only sort of hung out with him. That should’ve been warning enough, but I wasn’t in the position to be picky. I’m still not.
Nate might be a total tool bag, but he’s decent. I’ll never know how he’s making it as a finance major, but I guess when your dad donates boatloads of cash to the school of your choosing, you can still get a degree with mediocre effort and a barely-there schedule.
He’s at Overly’s Bar at least three times a week, a different girl shooting tequila with him each night. He’s actually the reason I quit working there and started bartending at Donn’s. It’s even more rustic with its shellacked wooden bar top and cracked red leather stools, but at least there’s always live music and a jazz band occasionally. Plus, the less drunken college idiots I see, the better.
It’s not that I don’t like Nate. I just…don’t like anyone right now, and I’m sure as hell not looking to bond with my drunkard, entitled manwhore of a roommate. He’s always talking excitedly about “what we’re getting into tomorrow,” as if I have any interest inseeingtomorrow. Shit, I don’t even want to see today.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to move on—I have. I’ve done everything to the brink of exhaustion just to forget. I run twice as long and push myself three times as hard. I get drunk with friends more nights than I can count, waking up without remembering how I got home, pounding headaches and nauseaconstantly turning my stomach into an angry sea of swirling disgust.
I tried the random hook up thing, too, just to feelanythingfor someone else. I ended up buried in guilt for touching a woman who wanted more than I was interested in giving.
I did every cliché, every socially approved step to move on, and none of it worked.
Every morning, I still wake up with the same hollowness inside. A lifeless reality that has been deduced down to a bedroom too small, a window too bright, and an aching, empty brokenness where my heart used to be.
The only thing that’s been even remotely helpful is the boxing gym I came across once I moved into Nate’s industrial apartment. The trainers showed me around, showed me what to do, and I’ve been going there ever since.
There’s something comforting about balling every ugly thought and emotion into my fist and driving it into a punching bag over and over until the world becomes a blur. Training until my muscles ache and plead for mercy, sweat rolling off me like it’s cleansing the disdain from my veins.
It’s an addictive kind of suffering, one I wish I’d found sooner. It would’ve been helpful when my dad ran off to Chicago to start a new life with his childhood best friend, Leslie, when I was eleven.
And it definitely would have helped when my mom hightailed it back to Connecticut a few years later, leaving me to finish high school unparented.
