[I'm sorry Jacob. I think we should break up.]
I blinked at my cracked phone screen, my heart dropping at something I'd been suspecting for a while.
Something confirmed with the next message.
[Truth is... I've found someone else... I'm really sorry. But you're just so distant sometimes it's hard to connect with you...]
My brow furrows at that last text.
'What do you mean 'distant'...?', I think to myself. A worrying mix of anger and fear beginning to brew as I try to go over all my past actions. 'Did I really fuck up?'
But as I go over my memories of our 2 year relationship I can't recall when I ignored her... Sure, I'm not good at expressing myself. Especially, when I managed to date a girl way out of my league... But I always made a point to ask how her day was. I accommodated her when she was upset. Bought her gifts on the right days—and sometimes spontaneously. Despite how uncomfortable they made me, I even tried to go to all the parties and raves she loved going to before we both agreed I shouldn't go anymore! Fuck! I even made sure she kept cumming until she was a quivering satisfied mess of ecstacy whenever we had sex despite always feeling unsatisfied by it that I have to jerk off secretly aft—
And then it hit me.
'No... There's no fucking way that's it... Right...?'
My hands shaking—my unsteady typing due in part anxiety and part indignant anger—I send a reply.
[Is it because of the sex?]
And before I can think better of it, I hit send.
'Read...', the only thought going through my head as I see she instantly read it. My a previous emotions quickly washed away but a sudden chill of dread for the incoming confrontation, an endeavor that's never gone well for me, 'Ooooh fuck... What the hell were you colossal dick for brains! She wants to break up and the first thing you send back is 'Is it because of the sex?' Fucking! Moron!' The "My Love💕 *is typing..." notification only amplifying my emotions until I feel like vomiting.
And then the bombardment begins...
[ARE YOY FUCKING KIDDING ME?!]
['Is it the sex?' FUCK YOU YOUY OATHETIC FUCKING CUCK LOSER!!]
[And for your information. No. It's not *just* the sex! Your so fucking BORING! Like, holy fucking shit guy. Your text replies take soooo damn long, you barely know how to hold a conversation, you never want to go out to party with me, and even when you did you fucking ruined it by sticking to my side like a fun leech!]
My heart sinks as the familiar diatribe comes as expected...
But then one part of the text catches my eye
'wait... 'cuck'...?', I think. My heart sinking for an entirely different reason as I suddenly continue reading her texts in a new, shittier light.
[Youve got the personality of a cardboard box, the fashion sense of a depressed incel, and a porn addiction to match! Your broke asf. Your gifts are always some cheesy cheap shit. Youve got NO life. NO motivation. NO future.]
My eye twitches and anger flares in my chest. I can't refute her since she isn't wrong... But what is this? Do I really deserve this shit?
'And that comment about 'chessy cheap gifts'. What else am I supposed to do? I've already got to skip dinner so I can order lunch at work the next day. At least I * try *to tailor her gift to her interests. When was the last time her gift to me wasn't paying for dinner or sex... And these insults...'
I start to go over my memories of our relationship through this new lens I've just uncovered but pause. I close my eyes and do some circular breathing techniques while I visual my emotions gathering to my heart before freezing them over as a way to suppress my rising anger. I could release this energy more constructively later—some good exercise would do the trick. Right now, I'd rather get some answers to questions I'm not entirely sure I want answered.
And so I send another reply, [What do you mean by 'cuck'?]
[LMAO you really are retarded! Do I need to pull out the crayons and draw it out for you? Ive been fucking guys at those parties you never go to CUCK]
The ice cracks as my anger starts rising to dangerous levels. The kind my therapist said that, if I ever felt like I was losing control, I should just remove myself from the situation... But when you've been living in an apathetic haze for the last quarter of your life, emotions this intense take on a life of their own.
[why], is all I can manage to send before I drop my phone to stop myself from hurling it at the wall or snapping it over my knee.
Immediately, I sit down where I am. I feel a slight cringe at what I'm about to do—feeling like some weeb with chuuni syndrome—but that feeling withers to nothing before the weight of my anger. And of the fear of what this anger will entice me do.
'It doesn't matter if it's real or not,' I tell myself, 'It's enough that the act holds symbolic meaning to me. Since it is from me that these feelings originate from. I refuse to to be controlled by my emotions.Iam the one in control.'
With my back straight, legs crossed, and hands comfortably cupped in my lap. I sink deeper into my breathing techniques. This time incorporating yoga belly breathing, and internally focused mediation.
With each breath in, I feel the air pass my lips and fill my lungs. I feel my heart beat—a heavy quick beat as though I'm a soldier at the eve of battle—and I imagine that, with each beat, the blood exchanges carbon dioxide for oxygen. With each beat the cells in my body and brain are invigorated. With each beat, I grow further in control of myself. Until, eventually, my slow breathes and slowed heart rate are in harmony.
The anger is still there, undiminished, but it's frozen. Almost as if it were... Hibernating? But still dangerously potent and volatile. Like depleted uranium.
Then I look at my phone...
I know what I should do. I should stop. Not hurt myself any further than this or it'll be too much.
The screen is off, probably because it's been over an hour since I sent that text, but the meditation to stop myself from making decisions I would regret had drained me back to my baseline apathetic state. Yet, even now, that frozen fury is radiating insidious temptations I'm failing to fend off. No, it'd be more accurate to say I don't care about preventing it's influence anymore. I'm just too tired to give it the effort I know I should.
And so I made the worse, and last, mistake of my life as I slowly, agonizingly, picked up the phone, drew my passcode, and read the last texts before the anger took over.
[what? Did you think we would last? Youre a HIGHSCHOOL DROPOUT working part-time at some construction thing. I'M in a co-op in college for Mechanical Engineering.]
[We are not the same.]
[Oh! And by the way? You can go eat a bag of dicks you cuck loser I know youve never cum with me. I know youve been jerking that little dick of yours to pretend like it hasn't been desensitized from jerking it every day. Multiple fucking times. Like, did you no think I could smell the cum on you when you went to to the washroom? ]
[Fuck you for making me feel like I'm not good enough! Now I'm dating a someone with NORMAL habits, a good FUTURE, and that doesn't make me feel like SHIT after sex! AND hes into a lot of the same stuff as me. Seriously an upgrade.]
[Hah! God damn it I GLAD I'm not pretending to date a disgusting loser like you anymore.]
[Piss off and never contact me again. 🖕]
I stared at the texts for a long while.
There's so many things I want to say in reply. That I'm not in a 'part-time construction' job, it's an apprenticeship in plumbing and HVAC. That I don't even masturbate for pleasure anymore, just to get a hit of dopamine to get through the bullshit. That I tried my best to make her happy even when I wasn't. That she should have brought these up when they first became an issue. That I should have seen it earlier. That she didn't have to be so vitriolic about it. That I can't deny her words.
That...that...that...
By the time I was thrown out of my fuge of rage I was staring down at the ceiling of my beat up old car as I struggled to breath through what felt like two bags of water inside shards of glass. I could faintly hear the screams from the other car as tears of guilt welled up, realizing what had happened.
Like a scene from a movie—or perhaps a dream—I saw my hand crush my phone with strength I didn't have before I ran barefoot to the door of my apartment, grabbing my car keys as I rushed out. I didn't even unlock my car before running my hand through the driver side window to unlock the door. Not caring for the eyes on me. Not caring for the warnings of calling the police. Not even acknowledging the broken fist I used to punch the window, now slotting the keys into the ignition with mangled fingers. I put it into Drive and rode over the parking curb before speeding down to my ex's dorm at the max speed the rust bucket on wheels would allow.
I think it was the third red light when my luck ran out and I clipped the front end a minivan at 100 kilometers per hour. And now I ended up here. Somehow still conscious let alone alive, though not for much longer. As the darkness crept into my vision, I could only silently apologize to the victims of my irresponsibility.
Their cries haunted me—specters of my sin—as my vision dimmed and my life ended.
And so, I closed my eyes for the last time.
.
.
.
.
...
'...Warm...? Is this death? ...thought it was supposed to be colder... And less cramped...'
Then suddenly I hear a muffled roaring as if coming from underwater while I'm squeezed from all sides.
'WHAT THE FUCK?!' I swear in my mind. I don't know where I am. I don't know what is going on. All I know is that I'm. Fucking. Terrified right now. And I can't even move. I can only suffer.
The torment continues. The howling sounding like a banshee's screams for my soul.
Yup, that confirms it. This is hell.
'I'm so screwed... But I can't say I don't deserve it...'
But before my self flagellation could continue, I'm released from my prison and... Floating? I try to open my eyes but there's some weird shit stuck to them. I move my arms to try and remove the obstruction—my limbs feeling unwieldy and uncannily foreign to my mind—only to be immediately grabbed by what feels like a giant.
'Oh what is it now...' The thought trails off as something soft brushes the gunk from my eyes, wraps me in something, and sets me done somewhere. I'm starting to have a sneaking suspicion I know the answers to my previous questions. The possible realization, of which, I find to both comfort and disgust me in equal measure.
And so, I opened my eyes for the first time...
...the fact that my under developed eye muscles makes it impossible to see in focus, I can still put 2 and 2 together as I see the vague silhouette of a smiling giant looking down at me with a halo of light behind her.
For a moment, I'm struck dumb by the angel before me.
Then the understanding that my realization is correct occurs to me.
'Haha... I really have been reborn...', my mind shakes in wonder as my little heart fills with a cocktail of emotions. Love and gratitude. Guilt and worry. I have a second chance. Whether it was granted to me, was random chance, or simply meant to be doesn't matter. It's a chance to live a better life, in all respects. This time, I would live an authentic life and stay true to myself. To live in good spirits and die without regret. That's my goal in this new life!
Then it occurs to me a second time.
'I've just been re-born...'
And now I'm crying for an entirely different reason.