CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
REBECCA
THE DOMAIN NAME IS ALREADY in my cart, when I realize that I’m only fooling myself. Not only does EvanIsATotalAsshole.com not have the same ring as SteveHasATinyDick; it’s also derivative and, more importantly, I suspect untrue. He shouldn’t have pried into my business or lied to me. But an asshole?
I hate that I’m still thinking about him and that even in my private thoughts, I feel compelled to defend him.
I empty the cart. I close the window. There’s no point to making a hate website about Evan. For one, I don’t hate him like I hated Steve when we broke up, and even more today. My feelings for Evan, even after our fight, are closer to what they were when we were together. None of my usual landmarks are in place. He didn’t cheat, so I can’t be hurt by his infidelity. He wasn’t a lay about, so I can’t hate his lack of motivation. He didn’t glom off me, belittle me, or lie with every breath to get his hand up my skirt like so many others.
I’m still not sure Even lied when he promised he’d let me snoop through LiveLyfe to my heart’s content. And I was snooping; then I said things I shouldn’t have said.
I want to hate him. To register that domain and start a new blog all about how Evan is a giant asswipe. It’d be juicy as hell, seeing as Evan is so famous. But where would I start? It happened over time with Steve. I’d been writing to my list about everything I did, and the asshole was part of it. My readers decided he was a worthless cheat before I did, so when I finally kicked him to the curb, they were ready to hate alongside me, and delight in my hilarious retelling of our worst stories.
But I haven’t been writing to my list since I met Evan.
I’ve barely kept up with the blog.
I haven’t mentioned Evan once. Nobody knows that we’re going out. And because Evan always made a point to tell people in restaurants that it was business, maybe word hasn’t even leaked that we were together at all.
Were we together?
I’m not sure that we were.
And that makes me cry. It goes on and on. I try to make myself feel better by remembering the way he shouted at me, but it doesn’t help at all.
YOU ARE A LOUDMOUTH!
I tell myself he’s a bastard. That I was right to feel those trepidatious feelings that night on his balcony. Getting close was bad news because he was another mistake.
But that doesn’t help, either.
I try to sleep. But I can’t.
I finally collapse after a day and a half, then I dream about Evan. We’re lying together, saying nothing. It’s the most boring dream I’ve ever had, and yet the coldness I feel when I wake up alone has me crying all over again.
I’m so fucking pathetic. Only one thing helps. I close my eyes and imagine Evan coming to me. Saying he’s sorry. I say that I’m sorry. We kiss. We make love gently, without speaking. I touch myself as I fantasize, and when I’m done, I’m not sure if I’m weak, sad, or angry.
Mad at myself, for thinking of the man who left me.
Or who I left.
I write to my people. I can’t bring myself, even after all that’s happened, to use Evan’s name. I call him Ray. I write an awesome, hilarious rant about how I met Ray, how he hired me, how we flashed hot like a solar flare before dying in ice. It’s a masterpiece. But when I send it out, the replies get everything wrong. They tell me how sorry they are. Instead of praising my sense of humor, people tell me that it’ll be all right and that my email made them cry, too.
Fuck me. I can’t even mock properly anymore.
I sleep. I cry. I eat. I don’t know how much time passes, but even Benji tries to call. It’s okay; I could use his mockery to beat me out of my weird funk. But as we talk, his tone becomes uncharacteristically soft. Sensitive, even. He tells me it’ll be okay, too, just like my readers did. I tell him he’s got it wrong. I got through it with Steve, and I’ll get through it with … Ray.
Then Benji says something that catches me off guard. “Becca, you never learned how to feel.”
I don’t know what that means. Two meals later, I still don’t know. He probably means that I don’t know how to feel about the breakup. It’s a little true, but not entirely.
By the next day, with the same loop in my head, I realize that’s not what Benji meant at all. He meant that I never learned how to feel. Not about Evan, but about things in general.
I lack some key facets of emotional intelligence. I’m not used to processing, and it’s a very real thing that I don’t know how I feel.
Am I pissed? I’m usually so mad after break-ups.
Am I sad? Am I allowed to be, if Evan’s the one who shouted at me? Or does that even matter?
Am I feeling betrayed? Do I feel like he broke my trust? Pitied me? Pandered, feeling a need to help poor little me out because I can’t take care of myself? That’s the kind of thing Steve and the others used to do.
Did Evan do that?
I don’t know.
I sleep.
I cry.
I imagine him kissing me to get through the night. In my mind, we make out for hours. I touch myself again and hate myself for it.
I finally identify the problem. Evan wouldn’t commit.
He refused to shit or get off the pot. He wanted his business consultant (legitimately) and to fuck me (legitimately). Maybe he even wanted to be with me, if that’s a thing. But he never decided or got off the fence. I was confused the entire time we were together. Was I doing right to succumb to his charms, because we were a couple? Or wrong, because it was supposed to be strictly business?
It was his privacy, I realized. His strict attention to maintaining his personal space. He — or someone on his team — thought nothing of watching over my shoulder and violating my privacy, but Evan refused to breach his own.
The more I think about it, the truer it seems. He never posts on LiveLyfe. Or contributes to his company blog. The press tries to exploit LiveLyfe’s handsome young founder, but Evan has given them little to work with. They pry for their stories because he flaunts nothing.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe it was all business. Maybe Evan does want to change education. If so, he’ll need to do it without me.
Because this hurt? The more I look inside, the more I realize that what Benji said is true. I never did learn how to feel things like this, maybe because I’ve never been with a man worth feeling anything about. I don’t like feeling them, but at least they’re genuine. They’re feelings worth having, even if they cause me pain.
Maybe Evan will stay a private man forever, and that was the problem. Maybe he couldn’t admit me to the world without admitting us to himself. Maybe we were destined to be colleagues with benefits, but I’m learning that’s not a relationship I’m comfortable with. I don’t want to be with him in business. I want to be with Evan, period.
Does that make me weak, wanting him after we’ve broken up?
Days have passed. Maybe he’s tried to get in touch; I don’t know. I’ve blocked his number. Blocked him from my LiveLyfe.
Maybe because I don’t want to talk.
Or maybe because if I did hear his voice, I wouldn’t know how to feel.
So I wallow.
And I cry.
And I wait for the hurting to end.