Meeting When It's Over But You Didn't Know It

I asked him to meet me so we can talk if for the last time in person cause I didn’t want to allow him to leave me with our last communication being coursed through an effing cellular phone. He was already dissing me, not replying to my chat messages when I was scheduling our final date and then suddenly texting to say the date is on, only to make me wait for him for 2 hours before standing me up. He asked to reschedule the date to next day at the last minute. My friends told me not to go anymore but I was stubborn. I wanted to experience for myself his Unbelievable Rudeness in person.

At the mall where we’re supposed to meet, I sat waiting for him and fidgeted nervously at a corner in Powerbooks while being surrounded by hundreds of books I’ve randomly picked which sat unopened. He texted me that he was hungry so he will just grab a bite to eat first. Stunned by the fact that I must have been horrendous enough not to be even allowed to eat with him, I snapped at him to hurry eating as I had been waiting too long for him already [actually I just got there myself but the 2-hour waiting period of the previous day was still stinging in my memory], before trying to think about what to do next and where I can eat alone without him spotting me. It suddenly occurred to me that he might still see me walk miserably from Powerbooks to the place where I’m gonna eat, and as it suddenly became my goal to not be seen by him before we see each other, I just decided to stay put, opened my bag, and got out a cupcake whose contents I quickly crammed into my mouth. I was really ravenous with hunger but if he doesn’t want to eat with me, then I rationalized that I better feed myself with whatever’s available in my bag before we meet.

I could not wait any longer pretending to be interested in books of various topics and sizes in Powerbooks while going insane with wonder if he still likes me or not, and asked him if he’s done eating. Turned out he had just decided on a place to eat. When I arrived at the restaurant, he had just started eating. He had ordered beer with his pizza. I had already promised myself not to touch his food out of the indignity of him not wanting to eat with me. But my EQ –especially when it comes to food and shopping– has always failed me so I reluctantly ate the pizza he served me on my plate. As expected, we did not talk about the problem and our source of falling out, but just made small talk about anything but. I figured the happy ambiance of the family restaurant would not sit well with our talk anyway, so I decided to talk to him after eating.

I noticed how incredibly thin he’s gotten since I last saw him. I unhappily noticed the space between us as we walked out of the happy family restaurant. I twitched with hope when he shifted the take-out bag he was carrying from the hand closest to me to the other hand, as if to free his hand to hold mine. My face fell when he did not.

I took him to the park to talk, where I thought the darkness would blend well with the heaviness of our feelings. Where he told me he had never been so angry in his life as he had been for the last two weeks because of a question I have asked. I took heart and poured out some of my emotions at him, which I had been doling out in measured quantity, cautiously telling him how he hurt me with his actions without scaring him by divulging how much he really meant to me. I looked at him sitting across me casually and tears fell from my face at how cruel and cold the only man in the world I loved had gotten to me –how he stood me up the previous day, and how he did not want to eat dinner with me, and how he sat there tolerating my tears without doing anything. As I sat there thinking how-could-he thoughts and sorting out my misguided emotions for him, he got bored in the silence, promptly stood up, and looked at me, signaling the end of our conversation and the end of the night. I walked with him outside the park absent-mindedly still thinking about unresolved things between us, before realizing that I had been walking the WRONG PATH home and that he had no plans to see me off at my jeep stop and that’s why we were walking on HIS path home. We both stopped and looked at each other when I realized this and I righted my path and went on drearily home. At home he texted me to ask if I got home ok. But I know it was just out of courtesy and that it didn’t mean anything. Goddamn right will it ever mean anything.