Feb 9:
I called in sick at work today. I’m sitting at home, eating and crying. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to work, because Jim is there. I’ll have to quit and find something new.
I guess you want to know what happened.
Yesterday was Sunday, so Jim and I spent the day together. We saw a movie and then came back in the evening and had some great sex. We had been planning to go out to dinner, but Jim was kind of tired, so we decided to order in pizza. Actually, I kind of hate eating out with Jim on the weekend because everything is so crowded and he has trouble steering his chair through restaurants. (I’m trying to think of things about Jim that I don’t like to make this easier on myself.)
Anyway, we were lying in bed together when the pizza guy rang. Jim said let’s eat in bed, so he stayed in bed while I rang up the delivery guy. I threw on my shirt and pants, then went to open the door. I kind of looked like a mess with my shirt half unbuttoned and my hair all over the place, but Jim didn’t seem to mind and the pizza guy certainly wasn’t going to mind.
Except it wasn’t the pizza guy at the door.
I recognized Molly immediately from her photos. Except that she was a hundred times prettier in person than she was in the pictures. She was really, really beautiful. I can’t look a millionth as good as Molly at my very best, and definitely not when I was all disheveled from rolling around in bed with Jim. I felt like some sort of hideous monster standing next to her.
I just stared at her awkwardly and she stared back equally awkwardly. Finally, she said, “Is Jim there?”
“Um,” I said.
Then she said, “Are you the cleaning woman?”
Ha, nice try. That was great, how she managed to insult me. I don’t think I looked like the cleaning woman. The cleaning woman doesn’t come on a Saturday night and walk around barefoot with her shirt half buttoned. But it was a nice reminder that I was so far off in looks from the kind of girl Jim was capable of dating that I could only be the cleaning woman, no matter how ridiculous that was.
I didn’t know what to do. We both stood there for what felt like forever. I think we might have stood there for an hour or longer if Jim didn’t roll in to see what was going on. When he saw Molly standing there, he looked furious. “What are you doing here?” he asked. He looked at me. “Why did you let her in?”
“I thought she was pizza,” I said. Yes, Jim’s new squeeze was beautiful AND smart.
“Jim,” Molly said in a quiet voice, like she thought maybe I wouldn’t be able to hear. “I need to talk to you. You won’t talk to me on the phone so I decided to come here.”
“What do you want to talk about?” he said, still sounding really angry. “Do you want to pay me back for beauty school? I’ll take a check, if that’s what you want.”
“I’ll write you a check right now,” Molly said. She reached into her purse and pulled out her checkbook.
Jim watched her writing the check and I could see his anger dissolving a little. “You don’t have to pay me back,” he said. “I know you need the money. It’s okay.”
I cringed a little inside. He was being nice to her.
Molly pulled the check out of the checkbook and held it out to him. He shook his head, “No, Molly… it’s okay. You don’t have to.”
She blinked and I could see she was teary-eyed. She put the check back in her purse. “Can I talk to you outside, Jim? Please? Just for a minute?”
Jim didn’t look angry anymore at all. He looked at me, like for permission. I really wished I could say no, but how could I? I mean, she was crying, for god’s sake. What kind of mean awful person would say no? “It’s okay,” I said.
“I’ll just be right outside,” he reassured me.
He kept his promise and they stayed right outside the door, but I was still agitated about it. Also, he wasn’t even fully dressed—he was just wearing boxer shorts and an undershirt, so she was basically talking to him while he was in his underwear. I wished there could be more clothing between the two of them.
I could hear the muffled sounds of them talking and I would have given anything to hear what they were saying. I pressed my ear against the door and I could sort of make it out, but not very well. Then I remembered what they always do in books: take a cup and press one end to your ear and the other end against the door. I figured it was worth a shot. I got a glass out of Jim’s kitchen and put my ear against it. I felt like Nancy Drew. Actually, I mostly felt like an idiot.
But it actually sort of worked. I could hear them talking and could make out most of the words if I listened carefully. Jim was saying something that sounded like my name.
“You know it’s just a rebound relationship,” Molly was saying.
“It’s not,” Jim said. “I love her.”
“Right, you love her. I believe that.”
“Fuck you,” Jim said.
“I’m sorry,” Molly said. “But I know she’s not the one you want to be with. We have almost two years of history together.”
“You dumped me, Molly, not the other way around.”
“It was the biggest mistake I ever made,” she said. I felt sick. “I got scared when you showed up with that ring. Haven’t you ever made a mistake, Jim? One you wish you could take back?”
He said something that I couldn’t make out.
“Please, Jimmy,” Molly said. She sounded like she was crying. “Give me another chance. You owe it to us. I know you still love me. I can see it in your face.”
I wanted him to tell her to go fuck herself again, but I didn’t hear him say that. I lifted my ear from the glass and looked through the peephole. I could see Molly crouched in front of Jim in his wheelchair. Her hand was running through his hair and he wasn’t stopping her. Then, to my horror, she leaned forward and kissed him. I expected him to push her away, but he didn’t. He just let her kiss him.
I stumbled away from the door. I felt like throwing up except I didn’t have anything in me to throw up because our pizza guy never showed. Instead, I started crying. A few minutes later, Jim came back inside and found me with hysterical tears running down my cheeks, my eyes red and bloodshot, my nose running everywhere. I was making this real easy for him to leave me.
“Tessie?” He looked shocked to see me crying.
“I can’t believe you kissed her,” I hiccupped.
Jim’s face got really pale. “Oh god, you saw that? Tessie, I’m so sorry.”
I just turned away.
“I mean, she kissed ME. I didn’t…”
He looked really guilty, so that was good. But not good enough.
“So are you back together with her?”
“No, of course not!” he said. “How could you think that?”
“BECAUSE YOU WERE KISSING HER.”
“Tessie, please believe me,” he said. “I feel nothing for her. She kissed me and I pulled away.”
“You didn’t pull away. You let her kiss you. I saw it.”
He didn’t even deny it this time. He knew I was right. He still had feelings for Molly.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
“No, Tessie, don’t!”
I went to his bedroom and gathered up my things, still sobbing. I had a bunch of crap in his bathroom so I grabbed a plastic bag and started throwing my stuff inside. I even had tampons in his closet. No wonder he likes Molly better. Molly probably doesn’t even menstruate or take a crap.
When I came out with my feet stuffed barefoot into my sneakers and my big plastic bag filled with my crap, Jim was waiting for me by the door. He was crying. I’d never seen him cry before or even close. “Tessie, don’t leave.” He wheeled over to me and tried to grab onto my arms but his grip strength wasn’t good enough. “Please, Tessie, I love you.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
How could I ever trust him again? How could I ever get the image of him kissing Molly out of my head? Breaking up was the best thing. He’ll be sad over me for a few days, but then he’ll realize he’s better off with pretty little Molly. He’ll give her a call just for comfort and she’ll come over and they’ll end up hooking up. Then they’ll get married like they were supposed to all along.
Anyway, I left the apartment with Jim crying and begging me to stay. In the lobby as I was leaving, I passed the pizza guy.
Feb 9:
Ugh, I feel and look like crap. I spent half the day eating and crying and the other half sleeping. My eyes are really puffy. I look like I’m 45 years old. I need to start dolling myself up if I’m going to go start dating again. Oh god. I can’t believe I have to start dating again. I’m going to kill myself.
I know I’m weird but after I woke up from my last nap, I stripped off all my clothes and stared at myself in the mirror. My ugliness is fascinating sometimes. I grabbed various folds of fat, trying to picture what I’d look like without them. I wonder if I should get liposuction. I have the money to pay for it and it might make a difference. Right now, I just can’t even imagine showing another man my body. I am honestly shocked that Jim was able to tolerate me looking this way. He must have a secret fat fetish.
Who am I kidding? I’d never have the guts to have liposuction. They’d probably just screw it up and I’d be left deformed. And let’s face it, suctioning off a little fat isn’t going to make me pretty. I’d need massive plastic surgery for that.
My mirror session got interrupted by Sandra calling me. She wanted to know what happened with Jim. “He brought you a zillion flowers this morning,” she told me. “I think he bought out an entire flower store.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“No, but he told me that if I talked to you, I should tell you to call him.”
“I caught him making out with his ex-girlfriend.”
Sandra gasped. “No, not Jim! I don’t believe it.”
“She came to his apartment and begged him to get back together.”
I think I blew Sandra’s mind. “I just can’t believe this,” she said. “Jim was so crazy about you. He’d sometimes come by my cubicle when you weren’t there to pump me for information on things you like so he could surprise you.”
A new wave of tears erupted. “I just keep seeing him kissing that girl… I don’t know if I can ever forgive him…”
“Well, who needs him?” Sandra said. “I mean, I didn’t want to say anything at the time, but it would have been hard spending your life with a guy in a wheelchair, right? There was a lot he couldn’t do. He couldn’t even get into your apartment!”
I remembered how frustrated Jim was by my apartment. More than anything, he wanted to be able to come upstairs with me.
Sandra continued to talk trash about Jim. She was right about a lot of things. It wouldn’t have been an ideal life being married to a quadriplegic. It would have made things harder for me in a lot of ways. And everyone was always staring at him and uncomfortable with him. It would have been a difficult life.
But it was a life I had wanted.
Feb 10:
I called in sick again today and worked on purging Jim from my life.
I turned my cell phone off and when I got up this morning, I had five new voice messages from Jim. I was a little tempted to listen to them, but it was too painful. I felt like everything he said was a lie. I deleted the messages but I knew he would just leave more of them. So I did something kind of drastic: I walked to the nearest Verizon store and paid money to get a new phone number. That’s what Jim would have done if he had been honest about not wanting Molly to contact him.
Of course, now there are dozens of people who can’t call me because they don’t have my new number. But honestly, I don’t give a shit. I’d rather not talk to anyone right now anyway. I was happy when I got my new number. It was a relief. Also, I got a good deal on a new phone.
Step two was email. I checked my email and I don’t even want to say how many were from Jim. Let’s just say there were a lot. They filled the entire screen. I deleted them all without looking. Then I set up a filter so his emails would go directly to the trash bin.
I also shut off my intercom. Three times so far, people have tried to come with deliveries for me, which were flowers or candy or some crap like that. I wouldn’t let them up. But with the intercom off, I wouldn’t even have to know about it.
The whole cleansing process made me feel a lot better. I feel like maybe it will be possible to try to forget about Jim. It’s not going to happen today, but I think eventually I’ll get over this.
I spent a little time today looking through some of the old dating sites. I felt a little sick to my stomach as I did it. I thought I was done with that bullshit forever.
I also started looking for new jobs. Sandra is going to freak out when I tell her, but I can’t work there anymore. I’m sure someone will be willing to hire me if I’m willing to take a pay cut.
Feb 11:
I think the word is made up of two kinds of people: those who eat when they’re upset and those who don’t. Three guesses which kind I am. Today I ate pretty much everything in the refrigerator. Luckily for me, there wasn’t THAT much food in the fridge because I’d been spending most of my time at Jim’s place, but that also resulted in a few not-so-proud moments, like when I was eating barbeque sauce out of a bottle.
After eating all that food, I really wanted to vomit. I went to the bathroom and bent down in front of the toilet and stuck my finger down my throat. I gagged pretty severely, but I failed to actually vomit. So much for becoming bulimic.
Anyway, I went to the grocery store to restock my fridge. I checked the streets carefully before I went outside. I feel safe in my apartment because I know Jim can’t show up at my door with all those stairs in the way. But on the street, I’m fair game. Maybe he’s not trying as hard as I thought, because I managed to get back and forth from the grocery store without a problem.
Once I got home, I polished off a pie I had bought from the grocery store. I was wearing my fat clothes today and I’m embarrassed to admit that I had to unbutton them for comfort. Having to unbutton my fat clothes was kind of horrifying to me. I stepped on my scale, afraid to look at the numbers I saw. When I looked, it was as bad as I had feared. Since I started dating Jim, I’ve gained almost 20 pounds. I don’t think it was anything I ate in the last few days, but I guess we’d been having a lot of meals out and he acted like he didn’t care about my weight, so I was just eating whatever. No wonder he had kissed Molly. I’m disgusting. I can’t even blame him.
I went back to the mirror to look at myself, although this time I left my clothes on. I tried to keep the image of Molly out of my head, but it was hard. She and I were practically different species. As I looked at myself, I imagined being a guy out on a date and seeing this image before me.
It was then that I made a momentous decision: I’m not dating anymore. I started this diary as a way to show the world that being a single girl is okay. We don’t need men to be happy. Arguably, we’re happier WITHOUT men. I don’t want a husband or even a boyfriend. I certainly can support myself financially. I’ll be an aunt to my sister’s kids and that’s good enough. I just don’t want to deal with dating again. That’s it. I’ve had it. I’m done.