Why I Stayed

Untitled Part 1

His anger was down to a simmer by the time we reached his parents' house. He was still mad, but I would later come to understand that once his fury began to rise, it wouldn't dissipate for anything except time. It didn't matter that he had nothing to be mad about. Despite having no proof, he still held his righteous fury that he'd caught me cheating. His anger would always be an undercurrent until he felt like letting it go, usually after demanding some kind of offering from whoever he felt had wronged him. All I could do was make myself as small and quiet as possible so nothing else would set him off.

As we pulled into the driveway in silence, he grumbled, "Where the fuck are my glasses?" I stammered that I didn't know. He dug around the seat, checking on the floor. In retrospect, this should've been hilarious. How does a person not notice that their glasses have flown out the window? Didn't everything look different without his glasses on? Wouldn't he have noticed if they'd just slipped off his face onto the floor? I finally suggested that they'd gone out the window when he slammed his hand on the steering wheel. I lied, no of course I didn't see it happen, but I remember about where we were on the road when it might have.

Later in the day we drove back and searched around until we found the projectile glasses, which were understandably damaged. Jay screamed angrily about how this was the third or fourth pair he'd been through that year, and how his mom was going to be so mad she had to pay for another pair. Part of me was glad his anger was being redirected away from me, but it wasn't entirely. Since we were almost all the way back to Tim's house, Jay suggested we stop by and maybe my "new boyfriend" would be there. He still believed that this imaginary person existed and that I was still lying about him. He seemed almost disappointed that only Tim was there and that he couldn't corroborate his theory of the mysterious college guy. Despite the opportunity to solve the mystery of the phone number, neither of us mentioned it to Tim—I wanted to drop the subject entirely, and I believe Jay didn't want to be proven wrong.

A couple hours later, I sat alone with Jay at Tim's kitchen table, and I broke up with him. I couldn't articulate how scared and powerless I'd felt in the car without fearing it would restart the unwinnable argument, so I tried to dance around the topic entirely. I would later figure out that I'd accidentally scooped up another scrap of paper with a phone number from Tim's room when I was cleaning up my spilled purse. But at this time, Jay had succeeded in making me believe I'd actively betrayed his trust. I was shell-shocked by the outburst and didn't want to bring it back up as a reference for why I was nervous being around him anymore. I simply told Jay that I didn't think it'd work out, and I was amazed at how difficult it was to say anything negative about his behavior. Because I couldn't articulate my own fear, it felt like I should shoulder all responsibility to spare his feelings.

"It's not you, I just don't think I'm ready for this kind of relationship."

Jay seemed annoyed and impatient, like I was making an obvious mistake but was going to go against his instincts to let me learn the hard way. He asked if I was sure, and I said yes, and he just rolled his eyes. As we left the room, for some reason I tried to kiss him. He said, "You don't get to do that anymore." I hadn't been trying to give him one last kiss or anything poetic or meaningful—it was simply a habit I'd developed over the last couple of weeks. His face was within reach and it was a knee-jerk reaction. I felt neither joy nor sadness at breaking up. I distinctly remember feeling nothing, and then wondering if there was something wrong with me. This was supposed to be sad, right?

Still, after Jay left, I had an uneasy feeling of compulsion, like when you reach for a cigarette but suddenly remember you quit and haven't bought a new pack. He'd been my first boyfriend, and now I had nobody to kiss. It wasn't specifically that I regretted breaking up, but I missed being touched and having someone. It may have had something to do with feeling left out because of Tim and Beth's budding romance and finally noticing that I was a third wheel when we all hung out. I felt an emptiness in my life that I wanted to fill with a partner. It felt like I'd failed somehow. When Tim asked if I missed Jay, I didn't have the words to express all that though. I just said yes, and Tim said, "Then you should go back to him."