Delayed Anger

Christopher returned. It seems like he has some radar for when I leave the state. I was sitting in the back of my father's SUV, sandwiched between my aunt and my step-mother on a quick drive to Hilton Head Island for the day. It's actually quicker to make the journey by boat, but I've read too many local books about people dying in the Port Royal sound, so I won't make the journey (yet. It's coming, I'm sure.)

My phone chimes and it's a text message from Christopher. I open it up and displayed in all of its MMS glory is a picture of an obscenely obese fat woman... or man... I couldn't tell and I deleted it before my aunt could lean over for a quick looksee. And now my phone is forever tainted because that was its inaugural naked photo.

The message made me angry. I don't think that the naked person intended for his/her picture to be sent around like that and I've seen too many Dr. Phil episodes of teens crying and attempting suicide over such a gross misjudgment. So I did what I suspect Christopher wanted me to do. I responded and told him in no uncertain terms did I want to receive any sort of message like that again.

Then he responds, "Sorry about the Homer Simpson pic." No it was not Homer Simpson. Homer Simpson is a fictional cartoon character. He sent me a picture of a living, breathing person that somebody loves. He won't even accept accountability for it.

Let's do a quick recap of Christopher's contacts since I broke up with him in the beginning of May:

• Called me and told me he was hanging out with a friend from college who coincidentally lived in the area but I had never heard of over the past year. Then he said he won a TV at his friend's pool party. I scoffed and said what kind of guy needs to give away prizes to get a friend to show up for a pool party, so then he changes the story to it was his friend's neighborhood's party, and then he finally admitted it was his own apartment building's party. That was a really long way of writing that he lied.
• Texted me and told me he was hallucinating off of Cymbalta, which was also a lie.
• Texted me a photo of an obese naked person.

This is the behavior of someone who is unstable. These stories scare me, because these aren't Christopher stories; they are S stories.

I get that he's desperate and trying things to get me to make contact with him. I know he wants me back. Of course he would. I too would want the only person in the 6 million-person city who would talk to me and hang out with me, occasionally bring over groceries and pay my way every time we went out. I would eat that up.

But I also wouldn't treat that person like crap.

Whenever I do think about Christopher, I get angry. It's some sort of delayed anger that's settled in now that I have had time to reflect back on it. The story that stands out most in my mind is this one. The one where I randomly show up at his apartment and turn on his shower and act all cheerful so I can take him out to lunch and pay for him. And he said no. He got back into bed, ordered me to turn the shower off and told me to leave before he pretended to go back to sleep. That is clearly not the action of someone who wants to be in a relationship with someone else. I remember feeling so hurt that I wasn't worth waking up for and I cried in front of him. Please, please go out to lunch with me. He just closed his eyes and rolled over in bed. Friend or otherwise, I have never had someone care so much about me that he/she shows up at my door when I'm acting depressed (not that I have in a long while, but still.) He said no.

He said no.

HE SAID NO.

He had his chance to be with me and he did not treat me or the relationship with care. If I could go back to that day, I would have stood up, smoothed my clothes and told him that this was no longer a relationship and that I was out. That was the moment I should have ended things. (I also feel like I owe an apology to the commenters who tried to be gentle and tactful, but I didn't see it because I was still emotionally entangled. You were right. I was wrong.)

It all just makes me so angry. I'm angry at myself too for just going along with it. My friends and I are usually only really active in the summer, so I was going long periods of time without them as well. I think if this happened in the summertime, I would have peaced out and met my friends for drinks on the patio and laughed at myself. Instead I let myself get caught up in that craziness.

*Deep breath*

Boys suck.