Fairy Tale Fail (3 page)

"But I don't," I insisted. "My
priorities are different."

"Then that's a problem," he said,
turning his head. The sun reflected off his glasses and into my
eyes.

The next argument was about how he
felt that I "didn't have a passion."

"Oh shit, not that again,"
I groaned, pushing myself off the curb. "Why,
why
do you think that I have no
passion? I tell you everything.
Every
little thing
that makes me happy, that
annoys me, that
passes through my
mind
I tell you. I told you my dream to
visit a new country a year, and I wanted to do that
with you
. And you still
think I'm
not
passionate about anything?"

"Do you realize how much
that costs, Ellie? I know you don't make
that
much. It bothers me that you're
not thinking about your career, and you don't think about your
savings too."

"I make enough! You're worse than my
mother."

He did promise no fighting, but
ironically, his calm manner was more grating to me than if he had
been screaming. While accusing me of being passionless, Don was
being exactly that. I felt angry, my heart was pounding, I was
ready to fight for us, but he was just there, calmly telling me the
things I was doing wrong. I wanted him to at least look regretful,
if he wasn't going to shout.

"Whining isn't passion," he
said, still deadpan. "It just surprised me to discover that you
complain all the time
.
You weren't like this when we were friends.
"

That was another card he
liked to use – "when we were friends." It was like the months that
we were in the same
barkada
– but not dating – was some sort of magical period
that he wanted to go back to. "When we were friends," according to
him, I was fun, spontaneous, independent, interesting.

"When we were friends," I argued, I
did not care about him at all. Didn't want to hang out with him
alone, didn't care if he got home safe at night, didn't want to
share my hopes and dreams with him.

"That's another problem,"
Don said, jumping to the third argument before finishing the second
one. "I just feel all this pressure to… I don't know…
be
the kind of boyfriend
you expect me to be."

Ugh. He made it sound so... dramatic.
And clingy.

"Because I wanted us to go
out more than once a week? Because I keep suggesting things we
should be doing together as a couple?" I said, becoming shrill.
"Shit.
I'm sorry
for wanting to spend more time with you. I didn't realize it
would
put so much pressure on
you."

"When we got together, you remember
what we talked about?" he asked. "I said this was going to be
tough, because I consider you a good friend. And I didn't want
anything to happen to ruin that."

I bit my lip. I did remember that. I
was so smitten at the time that I didn't think as logically. We
really had no idea what being in a relationship was going to do to
us. But I was a romantic who thought it didn't matter (as long as
we loved each other).

"Why, is this ruining it?"
I asked bitterly. "Because I'm not going to apologize for wanting
you to treat me better than
when we were
friends.
I want to be someone more special
than that to you."

"Well, I tried," Don had the nerve to
say. "These are the things we just never agree on."

He gave me a chance to agree with him,
which I didn't take, and now I was out.

"Well good, because it's getting
late," I said. "I'm going to need to find a cab."

"No, I'm driving you home."

"I'm not getting in that car again
with you," I muttered. "Is that it? Are those all the things you
have against me?"

He ambled toward the
driver's seat, but didn't say anything. I turned around and headed
back into the church –
my
church – and cried as soon as I took a seat on the
last row.

The way he talked about me,
it was like I was such a horrible girlfriend.
Not that you're perfect, Mr.
Self-Righteous
. But when you decide to make
a relationship work, you should be willing to overlook those little
annoyances.

It hurt that he didn't care enough
about me to try.

***

Charisse had been Don's friend longer,
but I really couldn't thank her enough for just being there for me.
Because Don was just... well, he was a good guy, and even as I was
telling her the things he said to me, I almost didn't believe any
of it. I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't too.

But she did.

Charisse rolled her eyes.
"Oh my
God
. Do you
want me to talk to him? Do you want me to punch him? I can't
believe he would ruin your favorite church like that."

"Well, he didn't mean to
break up with me there...
I
forced him to finish our talk."

"Ellie, he
brought you to your favorite church to break up
with you.
"

"There's no good place to break up
anyway," I said quietly. "At least I was in a familiar
place."

"I'm sorry," Charisse said, raising
her voice a little. "Is he behind me right now? Why are you
defending him? You were insulted and broken up with in what you
consider to be your safe place. You have every right to be
mad."

I knew that, but I couldn't make
myself really feel it. What if he changed his mind about
me?

Chapter 5

Some people had one large
group of friends, and that was all they needed. I, on the other
hand, had many small circles of friends. High school friends,
college blockmates, college orgmates, cousins, friends from my
first job, the
barkada
from my current job. These groups all had different
personalities – and sometimes I was in the mood for one group and
not another.

Restless Ellie became even
more so in the weeks that followed the breakup. I made plans
with
all
my
friends. I went to so many dinners that month that I dipped into my
Bangkok Fund, but I forgave myself because I was hurting and needed
company.

I wasn't sure how it
happened too, but after those dinners
all
of my friends ended up hating
Don.

Was it how I told the story? But I
tried to tell it as objectively as I could. It was fair to question
our relationship when there were fundamental things we didn't agree
on. Talking about it on Holy Week, in church, was better than not
talking about it at all.

But they all reacted the same
anyway.

They called him a jerk, an ass, and
other colorful terms. I told them that they didn't have to do that.
No need for a breakup to turn ugly.

"Ellie, a breakup is a
breakup. He just decided that he didn't love you enough to accept
you for who you are," my older sister, Gladys, said. "It's
already
ugly."

The only group that wasn't as
unanimous in its hatred of Don was, understandably, the office
group. I understood how difficult this must have been for our
friends. When Don and I were in the same place together
post-breakup, we never talked. I especially felt irritable and on
edge a lot, because I thought that Don was trying to provoke me by
ignoring me as blatantly as possible.

Friends later told me that he seemed
especially paranoid about what he thought I said about him to other
people. He told them not to believe me, that I was bitter and
slightly obsessed with him, and that I had a hard time moving
on.

"Did you tell him?" I
wailed to Charisse when she told me. "Did you tell him that all my
friends have been itching to slap me because I've been trying to
tell
his
side of
the story to them as well as mine?"

She shrugged. "I don't
think he believes it. Do you have secret blackmail info on him,
girl? He's
so
out
to discredit you."

That wasn't fair. I was
losing my dignity little by little every time I defended him to a
friend. (A friend who was on
my
side! They all thought I was nuts.) But I
respected him and what we had. Too bad he didn't feel the same
way.

So I decided that I was not
going to avoid him, whether he liked it or not. If he was talking
trash about me to our common friends, then I had to somehow be
there to save my own face. Or at least be given a chance to be
heard. I showed up at dinners, and lunches out, and tried to have
as much fun as I could in the same room
without actually looking at him.
It
was exhausting.

Finally, after weeks of
this, Charisse invited me to coffee. We went to the Starbucks at
the lobby of our building, and she treated me to a mocha
frap.
Uh oh.
This
was not going to be something I wanted to hear.

She was one of the leaders
that kept that group together, and as soon as she paid for my drink
I knew that she wasn't acting as
my
friend right then, but
everyone's
friend.

"Ellie," she said, and to her credit
she looked really pained about it. "I need to talk to you about
this whole Don thing."

"Excuse me?" I said.

"It's getting a bit tense. Look, we're
all friends here. It's just tough on everyone that we can't all
hang out anymore because we're afraid of how you're going to
feel."

"Me? Did you talk to Don
too?"

"I tried to," Charisse said, and I
believed her. "And I'm sorry, but as far as he's concerned, you two
are done. So I'm talking to you now."

Ouch.

That day, she pretty much told me
this: That they couldn't handle our drama anymore. They weren't
going to choose between us, but they didn't like how the group was
splitting between people who were on Don's side and Ellie's
side.

When it got down to it, he
was
their
friend
first. If I wanted to stay with them, I was going to have to accept
that.

***

It was at a party, three
months after Don and I broke up, that I did something stupid. By
that time I was feeling isolated and alone. Even my friends were
sick of hearing about Don, and I complied by not talking about him
or asking about him (much), but I couldn't help
thinking
about him.

I hung out with our common friends
less and less, but I still made a point to show up when I was
invited somewhere. His treatment of me grew maddeningly
unpredictable: one day we'd actually talk about a movie like decent
people, and the next he'd mention right in front of me how he
wanted to be introduced to some girl.

By then I couldn't confide in Charisse
anymore, because she had already given me The Talk. If I was
uncomfortable, I didn't have to show up. She would
understand.

But I didn't want him
to
win.

So I went to Don's boss' party. I
barely knew the guy and didn't have to be there, but that was the
kind of person I was at the time. I wanted to be there because
everyone else would be there. Also, I had been watching Don's mood
like they were weather forecasts. If he wandered over to my area,
would he actually make eye contact? Would he say "hey"?

At the party that night, he was in
friendly mode. He asked about my family, my sisters, and I gave him
an update that spanned months. It surprised both of us, I think,
that we had gone from knowing everything about each other to being
several months behind on everything.

A rum coke and a half for me later,
and Don and I were laughing like we used to. While other party
guests occupied the dining room and family room of his boss Ricky's
house, we had retreated to the upstairs balcony, accessible from
Ricky's daughter's bedroom. We were sitting on the floor, talking.
Like old friends. Like pre-relationship Don and Ellie.

Easy to forget what
that
was like. There was
a time when he was fun, and liked to listen to me talk about what I
did that day, and not pass judgment on me on things I should have
done. It helped me loosen up again. Our relationship – including
the breakup, and the ugly words that got passed around after – was
still the elephant in the room, but we both knew it, and we were
both pretending it wasn't there.

I didn't know if I imagined it at
first, but it was like he was moving closer to me. We were sitting
apart on the floor, and then our knees were touching, and then he
was idly tapping his fingers on my hand. It couldn't have been
alcohol (his one-beer limit had been reached hours ago) and he
never got drunk.