Lost

Saturday morning I woke up to an elbow jab in the breast. It's hard to fall back asleep after pain like that. I rolled out of Christopher's bed and got dressed.

"You hate me?" he murmured.

"No, you're just a lousy bedmate," I joked as I kissed him and ran out the door. I don't like to stay long at Christopher's because of the Femme Fatale who likes to do things in the morning like eat and poo. She's a very punishing dog too, so if she doesn't get to eat and poo, she actively seeks revenge on the apartment.

On the elevator ride down, I grabbed my phone to see if my mom had called like she normally does Saturday mornings. Instead there was a text message from a number I didn't recognize:

U lost and u know it

I don't really pay attention to text messages from numbers I don't know, because it happens every month or so. The texts are usually worded in a way to get me to respond, or sexual in nature. The numbers are local and I just assume that S is pissed and gave mine out to guys at rehab.

This one stuck with me though. It seemed a little more personal and a little more menacing. And S is the only person I know that actually texts with u instead of you.

I found it even odder that his step-mom just happened to call me that afternoon.

"What's S's area code?" I asked her. I didn't want to look crazy and paranoid if I didn't have to. My city uses three different area codes, so it's a quick way to get an answer to my question without actually having to ask it.

"You don't know his number?" she asked back.

"Nope. I deleted it out of my phone last summer and I never wrote it down. I don't even know if he has the same number or not."

"Hold on, I just wrote it down." She read me the area code. It matched. Damn.

"What's the rest of the number? I've been getting these strange text messages..." I trailed off.

"And you think it's him? It probably is." She read off the first three digits and I replied with the last four.

"Yep, that's it."

So it was S. S, who vowed to never contact me again after his explosive e-mail. And here he was at 9:30 on Saturday morning, texting me and telling me I lost. I've never known him to be awake at 9:30 before.

I learned during the phone call from the step-mother that he's living with Rehab Girlfriend. When he got kicked out of rehab, he never went back to the first one like he told his parents. He and Rehab Girlfriend got an apartment together in low-income government housing.

Which is also my new favorite phrase. Let's say it all together: low-income government housing. It feels good in your mouth, doesn't it? I try to say it as often as I can. As in, my ex-boyfriend lives in low-income government housing and thinks I lost. Lost what, I'm not exactly sure. I guess who turned out better after the relationship was over.

But after the joy in my newest finding, anger settled in. How dare he. He was living with Convict Rehab Girlfriend and texting me? Isn't he supposed to have moved on if he is living with her? AND HE'S LIVING IN LOW-INCOME GOVERNMENT HOUSING AND TELLING ME I LOST? ME? WHO IS MAKING MORE MONEY THAN EVER AND IS LIVING IN A LUXURY APARTMENT? SERIOUSLY?!

And before you tell me that he's lashing out at me because he knows he lost, that is what my therapist calls trying to rationalize a crazy person's behavior. You can't make sane the insane. I believe the truth is that he really believes he's doing better than me. He's that arrogant. He always comes from a place of arrogance. He thinks because he found another sucker to live with, especially so quickly (well done on his end, now he'll never learn to support himself), that I am the one with the problems, not him.

I was angry. I wanted him to know it wasn't okay to contact me. You teach people how to treat you and I didn't want to be treated this way. I wanted to throw in his face his crack addiction and his low-income government housing and make him really think about who is the loser. But I also have to constantly think about my safety in regards to him too. He doesn't need to know where I work, where I live, and that I moved on without him.

So I texted a friend and asked her to confirm that not responding at all is not only the healthiest thing for me to do, but is also the most painful thing I can inflict upon him. She agreed. Win-win scenario. Then she told me to send her all the messages I wanted to send him to get it out of my system. So I sent her a text message saying you look ugly naked and I felt a lot better.

Low-income government housing.