Silence Is Golden

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I managed to convince my mom to let my (then) boyfriend, Joe, move into our house, since he was currently living in a tent in a trailer park. What can I say in my defense? I really did think that getting him out of that environment and into a better one would help him. And I loved him. And I was an idiot. Raise your hand if you’ve never done something incredibly stupid because you were in love. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
As you probably guessed, things did not go the way that I had envisioned they would. Joe and I did not have candle lit dinners in front of a fire; we argued about him not having a job, or him staying out until two in the morning. At some point I stopped arguing. After you tell someone the same thing forty times, and they still don’t listen, what is there to say?
Then I started a new semester at my community college. In one of my classes, I saw a guy who had been in a previous class of mine. We did the your-face-is-the-only-familiar-one-in-the-room-so-now-we-are-friends-thing, and I started getting to know Chris. He was the polar opposite of Joe. We bonded one day over Ralph, and I realized that I actually like this Chris fellow.
While I was making friends with Chris, things with Joe were becoming worse. He had become friends with my cousin’s douchey then-boyfriend (who would later attack her car with a baseball bat) and the two of them were acting increasingly shady. One evening, the four of us went out to a movie. After the movie, the two guys were going off and mumbling together. Alicia and I went to the bathroom for a conference. We decided that if they were going to stay out until two tonight, that was it. Last straw. We were done. We came back out and Alicia’s boyfriend asked if I could drop her off at home, since he and Joe had to “do a thing”. I agreed, and the whole way home we discussed how over this shit we were. I dropped her off and wished her luck, then drove myself home.
Now, those who know me well are quite aware of just how damn stubborn I am. In the previous weeks, I have become increasingly irritated with Joe. I had also met a guy who seemed to not only enjoy my company, but respect my mind. This did wonders for how I felt about myself and showed me how there really were guys who weren’t jackasses.
When I got home, I packed up all of Joe’s things in boxes and put them on the front porch. I remember my mom coming into my room, seeing what I was doing, and asking if I was ok. I told her “Yes, I finally am.” She just smiled and left me to it. I wrote a long letter explaining to Joe exactly what I was doing and why, and left that on top of his things.
When Joe finally did come home, it was light outside. After reading my letter, he tapped on my window. After I didn’t respond he went around to Brian’s window and woke him up. Brian told him that I would come out and talk to him when I was good and ready, godammit. I learned this later when I woke up. When I saw that Joe was still outside, I went out and handed him the phone, then went back inside. He tried to talk to me, but I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. He eventually called his parents to ask them to come and get him.
It was the best breakup I ever had.