The Break Up

The Break Up

He came over one night, no different from any other night, I had not seen him in a couple of days, but that was not unusual.  He was working a lot of overtime at his job, and I was happily going to dance classes and working myself. We were a couple with a lot of personal space; we both liked it that way.
He brushed a kiss in the general direction of my mouth, on his way to the fridge to get a beer.
"Hi ya" he said, as he leaned against the counter behind me.
"Hi ya, yourself.  I hope you are hungry I made your favorite, Meatloaf."  I replied as I drained the potatoes in the sink, the steam rising in a hot humid gush; warming my face and making it red.
"Hmm" he said.
Something caught my attention then, I turned around to look at his face.  His voice did not sound quite right.  Like he was tense, he was gazing up at the ceiling of my kitchen like it was a work of art.  My stomach fluttered, but I did not know why.
"Bad day?" I asked, reaching for the warm melted butter and milk to add to the potatoes.
"We have to talk" he said.  No conversation in the history of the world that ever started with those words and ended well.  My breath left me in a rush, oh no had he lost his job?  Was something wrong with his sister again?  I thought to myself as I turned around to face him. I left the potatoes swimming in a bath of milk and butter.
He looked everywhere in the kitchen except at me.
"I am getting married" he said so softly I almost didn't hear him, almost.
I thought was so much for the bended knee kind of proposal.  My face broke out into a wide grin, and I laughed. I actually laughed. I looked into his eyes and they were cold.  Something wasn't right.
"What do you mean YOU are getting married?  Is that the best you can do for a proposal?" I said lightly.
He was shaking his head, and finally looked at me. His face was grim, his mouth in a tight line and he breathed in deeply.
"I am not proposing, I am getting married to Jill. I met her at work. I am breaking up with you."
My mind focused on the one statement I could deal with.  "You met her at work? Met who? When? You have been dating me for three years.  We were talking about moving in together, just a couple of months ago. " Then it hit me , we had not talked about moving in together since Christmas, it was now early summer. Where had the time gone? My mind was working in a fog.
He was the light of my life; He was my soul mate, my other half, my better half to be honest.  He brought order and stability to my life.  Admittedly, I was still working on keeping a spotless house, and the state of my car didn't even come close yet, but I was a work in progress. I had made progress, with his help I had finally developed a budget I could live within and was paying off my staggering amount of debt. 
He was the sun in my world, just knowing that he had chosen me to be with had given me confidence, peace and the ability to branch out and do new things. In the years we had been together, I had gone back to school and earned a degree. My professional future had never looked brighter. He had brought joy and a sense of adventure. I was nothing like the shy, bookish woman he had met.
We had such a good time together, we were always laughing. I always laughed when I was with him.  We enjoyed the same books, the same movies; we even enjoyed NASCAR racing together. He liked the horsepower and engine stuff, I liked the speed and the soap opera lives led by the drivers, but that was still our favorite Sunday morning activity.
I kept reviewing the words in my head, trying to put them in an order that made sense to me. How did he have time to meet, date and decide to marry another girl. What other girl? I kept thinking. Then it washed over me like a slow moving tidal wave. It slowly crushingly crashed down on me with the weight of a landslide. The overtime.  I gasped, my eyes bouncing from refrigerator, to calendar, to the meatloaf resting on the counter between us. My offering for him, sitting there unwanted, rejected, getting colder by the minute.
"Look you know that this has been hard for me" he said in a hard disgusted voice, "you are a mess, and I need someone who is more like me.  You can't think that we could live together; I can't stand how your place looks all of the time. You are so irresponsible with money. I know that you have been trying, but it was never going to work.  I didn't say anything earlier, because I just kept hoping and waiting for you  to become what I wanted.  But while I was waiting for you to become that, I met someone else.  She is great, you would really like her."
I stared at him, speechless.  A pain was squeezing my upper chest, just below my throat. My mouth was dry.  Ripples were flowing through my body starting at knees and moving up my body to the top of my head.  I was shivering, but it was a balmy night, the windows open and the sun setting to the west behind the Rocky Mountains.  The pressure of my emotions, out of place and jarring in the idyllic setting just outside my sliding glass door were making my stomach churn. I took a deep breath, once twice.
I opened my mouth to speak, but I had no idea what was going to come out of my mouth. Nothing did. I tried again, air in, lips parted, tongue moving. One word came out "What?"
My mind recoiled, no, please don't answer that. He had just been through all of the things; he had found lacking in me.  All of the things he found abhorrent about me. The list of sins laid out bare in the air between us.  The reasons, he was going to marry someone else. Did I really want to hear that again?
"Jewel, come on.  You had to know that when you quit going to the gym, things were going to change.  You knew how much your appearance and weight meant to me.  I don't want to spend my time with a slob. With my job it is very important that you look good all of the time" he said as his eyes moved up and down my curvy body, clad in holey sweats and a t-shirt that was stained with ketchup from making the meat loaf.
I couldn't breathe; black dots were dancing in front of my eyes.  It felt like we were having an earthquake,  I clutched the counter with one hand as I tried to wipe the spots from my eyes.  I realized there was no earthquake, it was me I was shaking so hard, my hand kept brushing my forehead and cheek rather than my shell shocked eyes.
But the pain didn't stop, the band around my chest was squeezing, pushing, and pressing so hard, I didn't think my heart was going to keep beating.  He had walked out of the kitchen toward my bedroom I followed him like a zombie, unable to speak. He was taking his Rockies jacket out of my closet.
He turned towards me and gave me a hard look, with his eyes squinted, like he couldn't figure out why I was just standing there.
"Where is my jersey?  I need it." He demanded coldly.
I went to the laundry pile in the corner and pulled it out, handing it to him silently.
"Well that's it. If you find anything else of mine, just drop it off with the receptionist at the office.  I brought your stuff back too," he said pointing to the bag sitting on the end of my unmade bed.
Three years and everything I kept at his house fit in a small paper lunch bag.  I was always careful never to leave anything there. His house was so spic and span. Everything in its place, my stuff never had a place.  Whenever I was there my purse and jacket looked cluttered up his dining room table.  I only kept a hairbrush, toothbrush and some hair ties, in the back of the bottom drawer in his bathroom.
"I really hope that you get your life together Jewel, I don't know any man that would get involved with a woman like you, the way you live. Good Luck"
He slid past me careful not to make any contact like I was contagious or something, and walked out my front door.