The first week of April was always busy. It was the month before the peak of wedding season. All the orders came in now. I had schedules to organize. Ingredients to plan out and buy.
Brides from all over the state ordered from me months in advance and even sent someone down to drive the cake back up. I always got great feedback on my cakes—thank you cards, blog posts, and even a few articles in small local papers.
I was building my way up one cake at a time, and Tyson was distracting me with his odd ways.
Time to also break-up with my boyfriend, today. This is going to suck.
I didn’t have time to think about Tyson and his weirdness for the next weeks. And I damn sure didn’t have the energy.
Sometimes it felt like he was draining me,
sucking all the goodness away.
But I couldn’t point a finger to
when,
why,
or how.
Tyson loudly woke up next to me. The bed shifted as he must’ve rose from the bed. I continued to pretend to be asleep.
I am a coward.
Last night, I didn’t break up with him. I had to get to it this morning. I couldn’t help it, but I felt guilty. That was why I didn’t have the balls to do it last night. Even though I know the relationship is at its end.
I wish Ashley hadn’t gone out of town. She could’ve helped me with this.
The problem was. . .Tyson hadn’t really done anything to deserve a break up.
He just really didn’t do anything.
He said the right things but didn’t really do it. There was no follow through. When we didn’t live together, he would come around to visit, but really wasn’t with me on a mental and emotional wavelength. Half the time we watched Netflix, ate, and had sex.
And the sex hadn’t improved. And my interest was waning. And I couldn’t figure out why I was sitting in the relationship to begin with.
Even crazier, something odd was going on with me. When Tyson touched me, it just didn’t feel right, but I couldn’t pin point it to any one thing. While he acted like a decent boyfriend, I couldn’t help but feel like he was fake.
Tyson said he loved me, but I didn’t feel it.
If one looked at our social media, we appeared like the perfect couple—cute selfies together, images of us going to the museum or park, and picture comments filled with the appropriate vomit-inducing hashtags. Sometimes I thought he was just with me for the appearance. But, maybe that was my own insecurities at play.
Tyson yawned on his side of the room.
I pretended to sleep, dreading this morning. His footsteps sounded to my side of the bed. I kept my eyes closed. He must’ve stood in front of me for two minutes or so. He’d been doing this for a month now, waking up before me, checking if I was sleeping, and then going off into the closet to scribble stuff down.
The first time I’d caught him doing this, I’d woken up. He realized it, finished what he was writing, dropped the notebook somewhere behind him, and came to me.
I had risen from the bed and rubbed my eyes. “What were you doing?”
He threw something in the closet and shut the door. “Nothing.”
“It looked like you were writing—”
He walked off to the bathroom. “It’s nothing.”
But I didn’t think it was nothing and didn’t like that he wouldn’t share whatever this moment was with me.
That night, I stopped having sex with him. I remembered him kissing me and feeling dirty like I needed a shower.
Again, I couldn’t put my finger on it.
So, I feigned being sick and not up to sex.
My gut said, “Abort. Run don’t walk to the nearest exit!”
And the whole time I kept second guessing my gut, thinking I might be paranoid or imagining things.
Weeks had passed, and he didn’t ask me to make love again, but he continued to sneak off to write, hiding it the whole time. And I began working on breaking up with him.
“Sis, you’re too fucking nice,” my twin brother, Rob had said on the phone. “He’s been good to you. So, what? If you don’t like him, then get rid of him.”
“Of course. I get ready to tell Tyson, I call him over, and I swear it’s like he’s sensed that I’m going to break up with him.”
“What do you mean?”
I sighed. “So, two weeks ago, I invited Tyson over. He came and before I could tell him, he explains that his favorite aunt passed. He holds me and sobs the rest of the night.”
Rob chuckled. “Oh, so he hit you with the dead relative?”
“Stop it. There is no ‘dead relative’ excuse that guys come up with.” I got ready to shake my head and stopped. “Wait. Right? There isn’t a ‘dead relative’ excuse?”