Quen
To hell with social media.
I was fine—absolutely fucking fine—before the advent of Facebook.
Stupid breeding ground for posers.
A global network swarming with fakers.
Who would’ve thought that a Harvard dropout could reproduce MySpace’s illegitimate cousin and that travesty would eventually become the epicenter of where relationships are born and decimated?
I never thought I’d be one of those girls who stalked her ex-lover’s social media page, but there I was—days, then weeks after our so-called ‘breakup’, snooping to see if he’d deleted photos of me. Then, just two days ago, I saw something I had never counted on seeing. A sudden change in Jake’s status.
“In a Relationship with Bianca Corbin.”
I remember the exact moment when my heart sank. That was when I thought to myself—NOW he decides to commit! Asshole! I recall the very second the first stray tear streamed down my face, smearing my eyeliner. As soon as my accumulation of tears dried up, I thought—Fuck men.
I was done with ‘em.
“Hey, Quenie—a nice long camping trip always helps me get my head on straight. Wanna join me?”
I look up and across the tiny breakfast table at my father in his trusty old red flannel button-up shirt and faded baggy ‘dad’ jeans, looking like Kevin Costner’s long-lost twin brother. Charlie Waverly…bless his heart. He means well, even though his terse demeanor doesn’t always line up with his words. This man is half responsible for my very existence, and for a third of it, it’s just been him and me.
He remains my constant despite the fact that I’m not very fond of the male species these days.
When I graduated from college over a month ago, I found myself having to re-explain to Dad that a certain someone would no longer be coming around. In spite of my announcement, it didn’t stop him from kindly greeting and chatting it up with my former best friend at the reception after the ceremony. It was beyond awkward to see my dad being all chummy with Jake, considering I tried my damnedest to avoid the latter like the plague. However, that proved to be difficult since Jake and I had been inseparable for nearly three years and my father had grown especially fond of him. Dad still sees Jake as the amiable future lawyer who loves talking sports with him and tagging along on camping trips with us.
My father doesn’t know Jake as the guy who rejected me in the worst possible way. I’ve turned down several great guys over the years; some who I’m certain wouldn’t have had any issues publicly claiming me as their girlfriend. Yet, I foolishly waited years for Jake Barker to get his shit together and finally cut the friends-with-benefits act.
Thinking back on it all, I definitely feel foolish for wasting so much precious time on a non-existent promise. Jake never verbally asked me to turn down dates from other guys. However, the moment one got too close to me at a campus party or during a group study session, Jake would turn all ‘alpha male’ and throw his arm around me, physically staking his claim.
As far as I knew, Jake never saw other girls while we were screwing around. I mean—when would he even have had the time to see anyone else since we were always together? I guess we just had this unspoken agreement that no one could infiltrate what we were slowly building. At least I thought we were building something. Little did I know at the time, he was the king of mixed signals. Now, all that remains in the barren space where my heart used to be is absolute regret.
It’s doubly hard to move on from Jake when he’s still pals with Blair, my current best friend and former roommate. At the University of Oregon, the three of us were inseparable. I knew once I gave in to Jake Barker at the beginning of sophomore year, I would live to regret it. Don’t get me wrong, he is still one of the sweetest guys I’ve ever known. It’s just…we’re so different from one another. Like night and day.
Jake is the type of guy who never has to work that hard to get whatever he wants. His parents are well-to-do, so all he had to do was snap his fingers and he could forgo the meal plan in lieu of Chipotle with extra guac. Bastard. Meanwhile, I had to work my ass off to earn scholarships in order to even go to college. Once I got in, I had to work twice as hard to maintain financial aid. Jake would often try to pull me away from studying to get me to party with him, but I stood my ground. He could afford to skip class, whereas I could not.
I ended up graduating with honors. He didn’t, but that really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. He still managed to get accepted into the School of Law. Now, I’m wondering if he’ll even attend in the fall. Just two days ago, his future seemed uncertain since I saw him all hugged-up with his new girl in San Diego.
Is she from there? Since they’re ‘Facebook official’, will she move with him to Eugene, Oregon while he attends law school?
I hate him—and her.
In spite of Jake’s updated relationship status, there weren’t any pictures of Bianca on his page. However, the blushing new girlfriend didn’t hesitate to change her profile pic to one of the two of them, then tag him in it. In the photo, Jake’s lips were firmly planted on her cheek as she put on her best Marilyn Monroe pout. The sight of her too-small orange bikini top, practically the same shade as her fake-n-bake tan, which barely restrained her too-large, unreal tits, couldn’t be ignored. Another thing that couldn’t be avoided was how she was enveloped in and kissed by the guy I’d so desperately wanted to be my real boyfriend for three years. The very idea of it makes me cringe, considering how royally stupid I’d been all that time.
Jake and Bianca: Two gorgeous blonds frolicking around on the Pacific Coast. They look like an overly sexed-up, unrelated version of Hansel and Gretel. It’s as if their coupling was genetically engineered at some twisted underground lab run by Donatella Versace. There is nothing real or genuine-looking about them.
Hell, at least he and I appeared as though we were a real-life couple in photographs. Or so I thought. Apparently, we weren’t good enough for him. I wasn’t adventurous enough. I wasn’t extroverted enough. I wasn’t blonde enough—or at all.
I just wasn’t enough.
For the past two days, I’ve been pointing a magnifying glass directly at myself. I’ve been examining why Jake abandoned what we had and quickly ran to something shiny and new. It’s difficult for anyone not to develop a complex after that.
Perhaps I’m more like Dad than I am my mother, Lisa. Sadly, we lost Mom to cancer when I was fourteen. Since then, Dad has chosen to remain single while focusing all his attention on me and his now twenty-five-year-old utility contracting business. But underneath all of that, he remains heartbroken over losing Mom. Therefore, he has been uneager to jump into another relationship. As far as I can tell, he seems rather content with being a lifelong widower. Lisa Waverly was it for him, so there will never be another.
Although my dad’s stance of remaining single is honorable, the idea of me being in my sixties and stuck in a tiny one-bedroom high-rise apartment with five cats and my massive collection of steamy romance novels doesn’t appeal to me one bit. Knowing this, I am going to have to eventually suck it up and give love another try.
But right now, I’m in no mood to do that.
Jake and I are in two completely different places in our lives, obviously. He even admitted as much. On that emotional night when we ‘broke up’, he said he needed to ‘find himself’. He figured some time apart would help him accomplish that much faster. Granted, I agreed that he needed to get his life in order, but I was very hesitant to accept that us being apart would necessarily help him to achieve his goal.