Not long after the concert, he called me to tell me “we” had a problem.
“What’s wrong?”
“Apparently, you have a stalker.” His voice was calm and irritated at the same time.
“I do? Should I be flattered?”
“Cute, but this could be serious.”
“What do you mean?”
“Emme messaged me. I thought I had her blocked on everything, but I guess not.”
“Emme? Why?”
“She found out about you. She’s been stalking you on Facebook.”
“And?” Why did that matter?
“She’s saying horrible things about you. I couldn’t even finish the conversation. I am meeting her tonight to set her straight.”
I pulled the phone away, looked at it, then pressed it back against my ear.
“You have to meet her in person to ‘set her straight?’”
“You don’t get it. She won’t leave us alone if I don’t. She’s crazy. I have to do this my way. I will text you when I get home.”
The line went silent and I tapped the phone to end the call. The next several hours were excruciating. I paced. I walked the dogs. I cleaned. I paced some more. I finally got in bed and checked my phone five more times. It finally buzzed. I furiously picked it up and read the message.
“It’s done. Goodnight.”
I typed back as quickly as I could. “What’s done?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“The hell you will. I’m coming over.”
“In that case, bring popsicles.”
I stomped through my kitchen and threw open the freezer, grabbing one of those popsicles I kept on hand for him. Maybe it was the way he ate those that his ex-wife hated. How he just chomped right into them paying no attention to the sensation of the ice hitting his teeth.
Within minutes, I walked into his house which was pitch dark. He was in bed. The window was open, and the fan was on. He laid there, half awake, shirtless. I tossed the popsicle on the bed. He grabbed it, unwrapped it, and wrenched off the first bite.
“Get in.” He motioned to the empty side of the bed. I slowly made my way, kicked off my shoes, and propped myself up on the pillow.
He bit into the popsicle again. “Do you know she had the audacity to scold me?” His words were slurred.
“About?”
“You.” He tilted the popsicle towards me.
“Why?”
“Because you’re a widow. She said I was sick for dating a widow and I was using you.” He took another bite.
“Well, you’re not, right?”
“Of course not.” He slurped up the juice. “She’s crazy.” His words jumbled again. “She said your name and I told her – ‘you wait right there. You have no idea who she is. You have no idea what kind of woman she is.’ I defended you.”
“Well, thank you, but I don’t really need protecting.”
He sat up on his forearm. “I defended your honor.”
This time I only nodded.
“She won’t be bothering us anymore.”
I didn’t fully believe him, and rightfully so. Because a week later, he summoned me to his house. He met me at the door. I asked him what was wrong. He said I wasn’t going to like the answer. He said it had to do with a bad four-letter word. I guessed “work.” He immediately said no, shook his head, and smiled. “It’s Emme.”
TAYLOR
Taylor. Oh yes, Taylor. I don’t think I even have enough words for her. Even though she was twenty-seven years his junior (yes, twenty-seven), my issue with her was not only did she know about me, but she tried to become my friend. I don’t care if you’re 20 or 50, when you’re sleeping with another woman’s boyfriend or husband, you should know better than to try to befriend them. It’s weird and tacky. Come to find out, though, that I wasn’t the first. Apparently, she would go to the house and have dinner with Joe and Emme when they were living together, calling them her “second parents.” I’m not totally sure if she was sleeping with him at the time or if it was still something they were considering, but either way, I can’t imagine sitting around having a BBQ watching some bitch call my boyfriend “Daddy” knowing it meant something else entirely when I wasn’t around.
She wasn’t just a kid; she was his employee. And not just any employee. Because her “real boyfriend” also worked there, in another department. And while I knew there was something fishy going on, it wasn’t easy to prove what. Of course, he denied it, she denied it, and her boyfriend turned a blind eye to it as much as I did. Looking back, it was so clear, but in my defense, it wasn’t that obvious right away - not even when it was right in front of my face.
Because, even though we broke up after Emme came back, it wasn’t over. He still wanted to be my friend, which meant he really wanted to keep the door open like he did with everybody else. And honestly, as I go on telling this story, I’m going to sound pathetic. There is no doubt.
But hear me on this. Until you’ve known or dated or loved somebody who is (in my opinion) a true narcissistic psychopath, you can’t begin to comprehend how it works. Trust me, it drove my friends crazy watching me take him back over and over and over again. They wanted to shake me when I would defend him but, again, it was impossible not to.
Because, even though I’m telling you these stories in harsh reality, at the time I was confused, but I also thought he was this horribly tortured soul that I could help. He talked all the time about his demons and how he was a monster, and I spent countless late nights assuring him he wasn’t. He told me up front who he was, and I mistook it as a grown man who just needed to know what real love was.
I was just going to love it out of him.
He came back after Emme moved out of state. It didn’t take long for them to remember why they broke up in the first place, and I’m certain he was texting me while he was with her, including one late Saturday night when he texted me to tell me he wasn’t alone. Unnecessary, but he later retracted that and told me he was, in fact, alone and he only said that to get my attention.
He told me all about the problems he had with Emme in the short time they were back together, including how she was still seeing her ex, and how he told her to move out of state with him because he was going to choose me.
He was going to choose me. It was all I wanted so, in my desperation, I believed him. So even though he would post songs every day on Facebook, he denied that they meant anything, and I completely disregarded that he and Emme used to do that when they were together which, apparently, caused some problems between them the first time. But, of course, if he posted a romantic song, it was for me. At least that’s what he said. But then again, he was probably telling Emme and Taylor the same thing.
Taylor. Yes, Taylor. She had one thing I didn’t, and that was ovaries. He yearned for a child of his own. He desperately wanted to feel connected to something that “belonged” to him, something that he could possess. Something that could carry on his name, but he didn’t even really know what his name was. It was as if he needed a child to prove that he existed in some way. And I couldn’t give that to him. Emme couldn’t give that to him. But Taylor could.