{Exploding The Moment} We Broke Up Over the Phone

I’m in my car, rocked by the amount of desperate hurt in my boyfriend’s voice as it crashes through the phone like waves pounding against a levee. I need to go, to leave, to get away, to assuage him, to make him believe the truth, make him…

He’s been repeating the same phrase for hours, a water torture of “Why?,” tapping on my forehead droplet by droplet. Why is it over? Why did I do this? Why don’t I care about him? Why did I dare to move on after we broke up?

Never mind that he neglected me for almost a year. During that time, he would magically show up in my neighborhood, out with my friend’s husband. Never mind that he changed his dating profile first, after the breakup. Never mind taking me for granted. Never mind that my parent and friends constantly asked where he was at every holiday, every barbecue, every vacation, every family dinner.

My skin vibrates with the force of the phone. I hold it away from my ear as he asks “Why?” again. “How could you sleep with him so easily?”

As in: How dare I have a rebound. How dare I start another relationship. How dare I try to find happiness.

But also, I’ve been spitting out reasons and counter arguments for a dozen minutes, maybe more. It’s more than just falling on deaf ears; he’s barricaded himself in a sensory deprivation chamber. He can’t hear anything, can’t see anything, can’t feel anything that isn’t within him. He is just an outward transmitting receiver, and I’m a boat lost at sea.

… — …

The interrogation started as teasing, casual, but twisted into a broken record of pain. And I’m in tears, with the phone away from my ear, telling myself that if I hang up it will be worse. So he continues.

“I need…” I say. The phone speaker is still talking. “I need to go.” I raise my voice, over his. “I can’t do this with you. I need to go to work.”

He is still talking as I look at the darkened parking lot, feeling for my door badge, ready to go inside and pretend everything’s OK. What a professional. “I’m hanging up now.”

For the first time that night, he doesn’t call back immediately after I hang up.