Dying Hope

"Spend this weekend with me." I said to Charlie at the first dinner we had together a week and a half after he moved out. Mind you, I was still confused as to what our status was. Just a few minutes before, I had asked him if we were still together as boyfriend and girlfriend. "I don't know," was his answer, "you were just so unhappy with me."

Actually, that was his constant excuse as to why he left me, "I did this for us. You were always so unhappy with me." Soon I realized it was him projecting his unhappiness with me onto me. It was easier for him to say that he left because I was unhappy than to just let me know that he was not in love with me anymore.

I must admit that I did not make our relationship easy for us for a period of time. I went through a year and a half of depression and anxiety in which I had to seek therapy for, and was successful in overcoming. During this period I drank heavily and was always lashing out at him at every chance possible. We would go out, I would get completely trashed and then pick a huge fight with him by the end of the night where I would call him awful things. The last time this happened, he threatened to break up with me - and he had every reason to. I had degraded him in front of our friends and even slapped him. This instance sobered me up and resulted in me taking serious steps in dealing with my issues head on. But by that time, the damage was done. For the next year and a half we were together, his faith in me was gone.

So, you see, I can completely understand why he would want to leave me, even though for that year and a half since I worked my issues out we were seemingly at our happiest in over 2 years. Turns out I was wrong, which I accepted. It was what happened after we broke up that devastated me.

"I can't spend this weekend with you," he said in response to my request to spending the weekend together. "I can do 1 night. Which night do you want?"

"Saturday, of course." Saturday nights used to be our nights. If I didn't reserve a night for us, we would never spend any time together - for his life revolves around his friends. Saturday night it was, he was going to spend the night.

Saturday came, and we hadn't spoken since that night we went to dinner. He had stopped by that afternoon to pick up some more of his belongings and to drop something off for me. Not a word was said about our plans for that night.

"What are your plans for tonight?" I casually asked him. He had some plans with his friends. "I thought we were going to do something tonight, Charlie. We planned it the other night." He said he would start the night very early with some friends then hang out with me. He was going to call me.

11:00pm rolled around, and still no word. I called my friend, Katie, and vented to her.

"Wait. Charlie is here, at this bar." She told me. I flipped. 15 minutes later, he called me. We got into a huge fight. I mean, come on, have some respect and call me to break our plans, don't keep me waiting. I could at least have made some other plans if I knew he was going to blow me off. One argument led to another as he was trying to make really awful excuses for not calling me earlier, but what he said next blew me away.

"Vanessa, I am going to date." He said. "We are not together anymore."

I felt like someone just punched me in the face. I felt like HE punched me in the face. 2 weeks after he left me, that's when he finally admitted that he was breaking up with me, and that we weren't taking a step back to get some space between us so we can work on "us." I thought I couldn't feel anymore stupid than I felt at that moment. If I would have known that it was OVER, if he would just have told me from day one that it was OVER - none of this would have happened. I could have gone on my own merry way 2 weeks before. Instead, I wasted my time, hoping.

At that very moment, as soon as those words rolled off his tongue, I lost all hope. And a small part of me started to die.

Cheers.