and the story continues on.....

This was on 4th of July, of 05. He was working-and working OT, yet he had no money. And he told me that he needed this 200 because he and his buddies went down to the city over the weekend, and he had been driving his buddies car, which he parked in a yellow zone and the car got towed. It was either towed or ticketed, that I don’t recall. It costs 200 to get out, and now he owes that guy 200 cuz he was the one who parked it.

At the time I didn’t really think that one through. I should’ve known it was probably for coke. Anyway, I believed him and said I would do it if he could pay it back next time he gets paid. I knew he got paid every Thursday, and he was asking me on the 4th of July, a Saturday. Said there was no one else around to ask. I was working ER so stuck working the holiday but was off at 3. I didn’t have the money on me, because he said he’d come to my work to get it-but would meet him at my place.

While he was over, I made the fatal mistake of telling him all about the birthday that he had missed with me and my friend. We had a very good time-too good of a time, and there were pictures to prove it.

I tell this story to W and stupidly start to show the memory card with the pictures on it to him when he yanks it out of my hand. I’m like “What are you doing?” when he laughs and says “Its because you’re a slut.” I looked at him shocked and he says “What, its not like you are a whore, you don’t get paid for it”. And I asked to have the card back. He said “No.” He was really being insensitive and disrespectful to me, and the more I protested to have it back, the more adamant he got about seeing the pics, and then said “I’ll keep this just in case you get freaky again.” Joking or not-I think he meant that-and note that at this time, I had already given him the 200.00 bucks.

Maybe he knew he was going to fuck with me-and that’s why he kept this as an insurance policy. Maybe he felt bad and said “Lets go get something to eat” as I lived next door to a little diner at the time.
We went to eat when he told me that J was calling him and he wouldn’t call her back. I asked why, and he said it was because she was hot and cold. I laughed and said “Like you?” He said “she only seems to want me when she can’t have me. “ He seemed tired and lagging and he remarked, “I feel better when I’m on shit.”, half kidding.

We get out of the restaurant when he tells me what I want to hear:" I’ll probably see you before Thursday, but you’re okay, you’ll be alright until Thursday?" Because I had told him and made it clear that I can only borrow him this money if in fact, he can pay it back to me by Thursday. I didn’t want to get into why and that was none of his business. I wanted to help him but was trying to reassure that he understood that it was a very brief loan, to which he did and promised to repay-on Thursday. 5 days from that moment.

I didn’t see him before Thursday-of course-and Thursday came and went with no word from him. He called me the next morning though-Friday-”just to say hi.” Didn’t mention a thing about the money. I should’ve asked, but I felt he was a grown ass man, he knew he owed it, why should I have to? And he carried on a conversation, telling me about work, the house they were pouring a driveway for in a ritzy town that someday “I will have one just like it”, meaning the house-and no mention of the money. And I felt uncomfortable bringing it up. I don’t know why now other than to say, being around him was like dancing on glass-and he had those pictures.

He told me to call him over the weekend if I felt like it-and I didn’t-but I did feel like getting my money back so I texted him hi on Saturday-and got no response. By Sunday night, I hadn’t heard anything, and rent was already late. I had lent him the money out of the money I had saved for my rent. My rent being due by the 10th of the month, because I moved in on the tenth and that’s what my landlord and I did to make it easier. And I was PISSED. By Wednesday, he had not responded to my texts or returned my calls, and I had no other choice but to borrow the 200 myself in order to cover my rent. Finally, he calls me Thursday-the week after the Thursday he was supposed to pay me-and says to me very coldly “You need to relax. I have your money. Just tell me where you’ll be so I can give it to you.” No apologies, no explanations.

And I said as much. “You’ve been avoiding me for a fucking week and now you are going to act like this to me? After I helped your ass out? What the hell is wrong with you? How about an “I’m sorry”, asshole? “To which he responded “I am sorry, I will call you later.”
He didn’t.

And another week passed. I got a voicemail “Hey I’m not avoiding you, I’m not blowing you off, I have your money”-but it never appeared. Or I’d call back, and he wouldn’t answer. I’d get a text “I’ll call you later” and then later would come with not a call but another text “Hey, my ankle is fucked,can't do tonight, got it, see you tomorrow.” Setting me up to react again, put me off, lied to me, disrespecting me. I now owe my friend Pat the money-who didn’t have it to give at the time, either-who is mad at me for being so stupid to have lent someone who is so shitty to me money, didn’t I see that W didn’t give a shit about me, he is using me, and now we are both fucked? He wanted to go kick his ass. I was about to let him.

Instead, I called again. Please, I begged. Just let me know what the fuck. Don’t do me like this, if you don’t have it, fine, but don’t treat me this way. Don’t fuck me like this. Even if all you can give me is 10 bucks, fine, at least that is something, at least that shows that you are sorry and intend to pay it back. At this point I had totally forgotten about the picture card, just focused on what he was doing to me, emotionally, mentally.

And I’d get a text-” I will explain. Sorry. Call u tomorrow.” And there would be no call.
After 3 weeks had now passed since I first lent him the money-I was beyond pissed. I was crazy. And my friend was super irate that he still had this picture card as well-which had pictures of her on there, and she was going to have his ass kicked. I finally exploded on him and yes, I threatened him with that. I said if he didn’t at least give those pictures back, much less the money, that he would in fact, have his ass kicked.
And of course-he then called.

He finally came by with the pictures-but no money. And some sort of an explanation. He couldn’t even look at me. He had asked me “Cant I just leave the money on your car? Or on your door on my way to work?”

And I said “No.” Why, so he could run away and never explain what he did? I heard him out, because I was entitled to an explanation, I deserved an explanation. I wanted to hear what it was he possibly had to say. But I didn’t believe he was sincere. Remember, this is a man who is capable of telling me what it is he thinks I want to hear-by his own admission, to tell me things that aren’t true to “test” me and to make me react, to “make” me do things, I wouldn’t know what to believe out of his mouth now. He’s such a chronic liar that anything he says should be taken with a grain of salt. But yet, he still owed me that much.

He told me he didn’t know why he did this. “This isn’t me, this isn’t who I am.” He said he didn’t think I needed the money, which is bullshit and I didn’t understand since I clearly told him I did. It was then that he told me that the Friday morning he called-the day after he originally had agreed to pay me-that he had been testing me. At that point I felt like telling him next time to go borrow money from his girlfriend, test her ass. He said that I was the least of his problems. He said he didn’t know what to say, except that he hoped he had a chance to make it up to me, he hoped we could be friends, he understood if I didn’t want to talk to him again, but he hoped that I did.

Then he said something that deeply disturbed me. He told me “Last winter didn’t bother me, but this bothered me.” What the hell did that mean? That’s not what he told me when he told me all the shit I wanted to hear for 2 hours, that’s not what he said when he came calling after me after running into me at the bar. It had all “bothered” him them, “bother” being a pet word of his-and now only this was? I asked him why none of it bothered him last winter and he said “He didn’t have time then, didn’t have time to think about me or what I was about.” In other words, when J was around, I was the one who was now “chopped liver.”

He then said “Things were going good with you and I, and I fucked them up.” I agreed. I told him that I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to have any self-respect and still be his friend. I needed time to absorb what he said, figure out if I even believed any of it, and if he or any of this was worth it. He just put me thru a huge emotional wringer, in ways he didn’t even know about-in ways I didn’t even know about-I needed to sort it out. I also needed him to pay me back, which again he said he would. He’d have my money tomorrow he said, when some guy at work gives him some.

And the next night-I get the call, and the excuses again. He missed the guy at work. But at least he called, and so tired from being so hurt and mad, I gave him that much. Pathetic that a bone like that would satisfy me.

He claimed his problems were stemming from lack of work in the winter-though he did say his ex wife worked with him that way and forfeited child support while he was unemployed-and poor financial decisions. He denied that it was coke that was the reason. I had asked him once how he had afforded the coke use and initially he said “I make enough money, I make like 70k a year” to “I just don’t pay for the things I should.” Clearly. He denied having a problem with the coke-”I didn’t use when I was married!” “I still have a job, I maintain.”

He told me during this “explanation/apology” talk that that he needed and wanted to sell the house. I told him to think carefully about that, because losing the house and having to move back in with his mother might really devastate his feelings about himself and I thought he should hold onto it because it’s an asset, an investment. If he didn’t want to live there, he could rent it out. But he thought that would be the solution to his problems. And he felt that J was the way to stop using coke because he also said “I don’t use when I’m with J”-another blow to MY feelings about myself. Though I now know that an addict is an addict and an abuser is an abuser but an addicted abuser is the worse, and it wouldn’t matter who he’s with-he’d end up using again, or abusing again.

But you know, its all me. He uses coke around me, and he’s an asshole only to me.

He told me he'd be going to a movie with a friend, and when that let out, he'd come by with my 200.00. It should've let out by 10pm. By midnight, I had not heard from him-so I called him, so sick of this shit.

He asked if he could just give me 100.00 right now. Then said "forget it, I'll give it to you all. Be there in a bit." Then calls me back "Yeah, I'm with my neighbors right now, we've been drinking, and he thinks I'm too wasted to drive." So now, at 1am, I said "Fuck this, you know what? I WILL COME GET IT." And of course, I had to go to HIM....and I did. He answers the door, hands me the money, I asked him "Can I talk to you for 5 mins?" He says that he would, except that he's too wasted right now and that I deserved his full attention and for him to have a clear head, so, we will talk soon, he promised.

I wanted to sit him down again, and tell him what I had absorbed and since he had wanted to know if we could still be friends, I was going to give to him what he couldn’t give to me-closure. And I had a book for him I had picked up all about cocaine addiction. I had given him some amino acids that were supposed to help with the come down. I called and asked him if he would give me just one hour of his time. He said he would, he’d call me later.

Later came-and he refused to see me. He said he didn’t think he could do it the following night (of course, it was a Thursday, payday, coke day) but he invited me over on Friday. Said he’d have the kids but could put in a movie and we could talk. He then called to tell me he forgot he promised to take the kids for a sleep over at his sisters. I had my kids on Saturday, so we both agreed that Sunday night would be best as neither one of us would have kids.

And then Sunday came-with another excuse. This time, he was fighting with his ex, and complaining about her mistreating him now that she was back with her ex boyfriend, and that she wants more money. So now he didn’t want to see me, he wasn’t in the mood. Said call him tomorrow.

I did, and he said that he couldn’t do it, he had to go help the neighbors mow their lawn. He asks “Cant we just do this over the phone?” and I suppose that I just gave in, because it was something. It wasn’t what I wanted, and you can’t give someone something over the phone, but okay, let’s talk. And he started going on a rampage about J. We never did talk about what I wanted to say-because he interrupted me and began talking about her. About what she means to him. This wasn’t supposed to be a conversation about him and her, it was supposed to be a conversation for me, about him and I, about him and his problem, and instead, he twists it to be about what HE wanted to talk about. He tells me she was the one. He totally loves her and he would’ve married her. “I want to marry her, and she wants to marry me.” She was “everything” except the only problem was her issues of commitment, which he forgave , which he forgave because she has A.D.D. He said “She’s been doing this to me for six years, and I won’t be kept any longer, and that’s why it’s over now. I lost number one, so I guess I have to learn to like number two.” (number 2 being me.) Told me that she’s better for him than I ever could be. I asked him why he didn’t tell me all this long before, when he had the chance, when I FUCKING ASKED HIM. I ASKED him if he was in love with her, what the relationship meant and that’s when I got the “If my life was more together I wouldn’t even want her” speal. I asked him how could he possibly minimize the relationship to me so much, and not be honest with me and give me a chance to decide what I WOULD WANT to do. He told me “How do you tell someone that likes you?” BECAUSE they fucking like you, dumb ass. How could he not? Told me that “You tried too hard.” (again, another reason he wasn’t into me) and that “You’re just not getting it!”
He continues on by telling me “You know that Staind song? That’s it!” At the time, the song “Right There” by Staind was getting a lot of airplay-it was hard not to hear it, and so I had to switch the station now because the lyrics are about a guy saying to a girl give me a second chance, can’t you forgive me, you’re the one, the one I am willing to bleed for, you always keep me waiting, right here waiting, you always find a way, etc.

Again, who does this shit? Who is so incredibly insensitive to another person’s feelings that they have to do that? Why did he have to consistently rub into my face that he was into someone else? Yeah, I GOT THAT. I didn’t need to keep hearing this over and over and hear the intimate details of all the feelings and thoughts he’s had about HER. Not once a compliment to me. Not once an interest in who I am. Nothing but what is wrong, lacking, uncool about me-and nothing but her being up on a pedestal.
Marriage? He was never even in a true relationship with her at that point, they were never boyfriend/girlfriend, it was six years of bullshit, not unlike this. They weren’t together, she puts him down whenever a new guy comes along, fine, whatever. He’s clearly as delusional as I had been. I said “what happened to needing to get your life together before you could do “this”, what happened to not wanting to let people get close to your heart because you don’t want to hurt them?” He replied “It just happened”.

And I should add, this whole time he is yelling at me and telling me all of this, there is a woman in the background laughing. When he started out being all haughty and arrogant, I could hear her talking in the background, interjecting something, and laughing. Further humiliating me, by doing it in front of another woman. Not even the woman he is talking about marrying. Some OTHER woman.

He then dumps all that on me-having just derailed the conversation I wanted to have by hitting me blindside with the TRUTH, throwing this woman in my face after knowing the torment of my own feelings for him-and then runs to quickly hang up, citing that he had to go help his neighbors again.
Always so busy helping others, never able to give me even fucking five minutes. Just simply decimated my self worth.

He then turned on me like the wolf to Little Red Riding Hood and twisted it all like an insane piece of licorice to make it seem like I was the one abusing him, and told people that he didn’t want me in his life and that I was just not getting that. A far cry from the “I hope you will let me make this up to you, I hope you will still want to talk to me, I hope you will still want to be my friend.” “She wont leave me alone, she wont stop bothering me, she wants me and I want nothing to do with her.” he now says.

I was crushed. The confusion, the using me, the manipulation, the lying, the gas lightening-and the kindness I showed him-even in the face of all of it, he still treated me with nothing but contempt, as an object, as someone to simply abuse. Even in the moments of when we were getting along-he was an ass. I remember I had some toys that my kids weren’t going to use anymore, unisex stuff like a National Geographic crystal growing kit, and when I offered it to his kids, he screamed at me “ I don’t have room in my house for it.” When I explained that it isn’t stuff that would take up too much room, and fine, just thought I’d offer it-because it was either his kids, goodwill or the garbage, he then yelled at me “Well just go have a garage sale!”
Whoever told him he was “too nice”, ought to have their head examined.

That's how it ended. He wouldn't see me, didn't care, twisted it onto me-so I SENT him the book on coke addiction, and that was it for us.

For now.

This, ontop of a friend's suicide, me getting hit in a car accident and a breast cancer scare, I was at the edge, on the brink, and I ran away. Everything weighed too heavily, my heart crushed in many ways. con't later