Psycho-gal Last Chapter

I held my breath. Was he gonna hang up? Yell at me? Curse me out? Break up with me right there and then? Of course not. This is Steve we're talking about. Instead, he spent the next ten minutes trying to make me feel better, making the guilt that much worse. Was this guy for real? We ended the conversation with "we need to talk" and that was that.

The next week, I returned his phone (he didn't even raise an eyebrow) and we had great sex and life went on as normal. A week later, he called me to his crib on a Monday night, saying we needed to talk. Everything was going great as far as I could tell, but my instincts told me that he was about to break up with me. Should I beat him to the punch line? I have never had a guy break up with me before, I prefer to exit a relationship before things get too complicated emotionally. Yet, somehow, I hadn't had the strength to leave Steve, even though I knew from the beginning that our relationship was doomed.

He's African American, and I don't even need to get into the stereotypes surrounding that identity alone. I hate being stereotyped myself, so I decided that I was gonna give him a chance and not base anything on stereotypes. After all, he had a great job that requires high IQ and discipline, he had a house, a very cute little sports car, and my favorite: he was planning on going back for his Masters next fall so we spent a lot of time together studying. Not exactly fitting a stereotype, right? On my second date with him, I saw a photo of a cute little girl and asked who she was.

"My daughter." Oh? Usually this would be the part where I walk away and don't ever look back. It was only our second date for crying out loud. But no, I wasn't gonna be that judgemental. Besides, the baby lived with the mother and he went on to answer all my questions about the baby mama. Honesty is a virtue.

Weeks and weeks later, while making general conversation, I happened to mention a dude I met at a coffeeshop that worked as a correctional officer at the state prison. Somehow, Steve ended up telling me about the time he was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor for getting into a fight at a club. Oh? He had a criminal record too? By this time, I was in way over my head and that piece of info went unregistered. He had not displayed any act of violence thus far. In fact, one of his Kenyan friends is dating a friend of mine and one time he hit her and threw her against the wall. I told Steve about it and the next day, he had a talk with his friend and let him know that it was not cool to hit a woman.

So, I headed over to Steve's place, anticipating the break up. Within 3 minutes of getting there, I killed the small talk and asked him to get to the point. Of course he broke up with me and attempted to explain all the things we were both going through (issues with his baby mama's boyfriend hitting her and he was worried the jerk might get physical with his daughter too so he wanted to talk to his lawyer and the baby mama and ensure the daughter is safe) and well, I just have too many issues in general. I didn't shed a tear mostly coz I didn't feel a thing. He insisted that we remain friends and I was ok with that. Then came the goodbye hug and finally, the river started gushing. I've never cried in front of any guy I've dated and there's nothing I hate more than crying in front of people. Even my closest friends and cousins rarely see my tears. For some strange reason, I see that as a sign of weakness.

Yet, here I was getting hysterical in front of Steve. I don't know which was worse, the fact that I still had feelings for him that I'd never had for any other guy, or the fact that I was not the one doing the breaking up. I somehow made it to my car and blindly stuck the key in the ignition. Steve came up on my side and took the key right out, and pulled me back into the house.

"I can't let you drive in this condition." Oh yeah, he was ever the sensible, caring man. He always stayed on the phone with me while I made my 40 minute drive home late at night. He could not sleep if he knew I wasn't home yet.

I finally pulled myself together and stopped crying. For the first time since I met him, he said the words "I love you". Usually it was "I really like you a lot." Well, that didn't change the fact that we were broken up. I called my gal Dee and my bro and told them Steve and I had broken up. They were the happiest ones when I first started dating Steve and informed them that I actually liked him a lot. They were more used to my short little flings in which I only told them about the guy after I'd dumped him.

So this is how a broken heart feels like. It was the worst feeling I'd ever experienced. I found myself thinking back to the previous summer and the guy I'd dumped after he told me he loved me. I didn't feel anything for him and on the day I dumped him, he started crying. I simply walked off and shut the door behind me. I ignored him for months and finally, we somehow became friends to this day. What a mean, horrible thing I'd done to him.

I tried to make it through the week in one piece. I hardly recall anything at all. I was simply existing. Then came Wednesday night and I got a text message from Steve wondering how I was doing. I ignored it. Thursday, voicemail from Steve wondering how I was doing. Ignored it until Dee called to tell me that I should call Steve. She'd seen him when she was at lunch with her boyfriend, and according to her, he looked really shabby and kept asking about me. A warm feeling ran through my heart. Really? So I picked up the phone and called him. Did I wanna meet him the next day for lunch? Without a second thought, I said yes.

Friday rolled around and I was excited to be having lunch with Steve, but I was also worried about how it would feel to see him after 5 days. Would it be a lot harder to get over him? There he was, looking hot and all. He was always so well groomed. I guess he must have gotten a hair cut the night before coz he surely didn't look shabby to me. After an awkward lunch, he walked me to my car and before I knew what was going on, we were all over each other. Now I was really confused. He started saying he missed me and we should not have broken up and asked me to think about getting back together. Think about it? Was he kidding? I didn't wanna give him the impression that I was willing to get back together at the drop of a hat, so I told him I would come see him the next day. I left with my heart singing all the way home.

Come Saturday, I did my usual family ritual in the morning, then headed over to Steve's. We didn't even talk. As soon as he opened the door, we were on each other. I have to say, make up sex is the best. In my mind, I recited a zillion reasons why I should never do something so dumb as looking through his phone and other crap like that. I was in love and he was in love with me and that's all that mattered. Or was it?