The phone chime of a message received, sickened me. Why wouldn’t this woman leave me alone? We both looked at the phone and then each other. I picked it up and went to voicemail. I told “the pilot” that I would put it on speaker phone so we could listen to it together. As I pressed the button I said, “Here we go.”
For the record, I have her message saved to my computer, but I will summarize what she said. She told me how “the pilot” and I must be of the same mindset that our phones go straight to voicemail. She told me how she had met him in 2009 and maybe I like being cheated on. She spoke of him taking the AC unit back during a storm and how she pushed it out of the window because no one comes to her house acting like a fool and demanding its return. She listed the country music concerts he took her to, most recently Brett Eldredge. And, she told me that he is not a pilot, that he is a desk clerk at a hotel.
I sat there, frozen in disbelief. What had I just listened to? Was this true? Was all of this true? If this is all true, who is living in my house? I looked up at him and I saw a stranger standing in my bedroom. I started to hyperventilate. Then, my Facebook instant messenger started to chime. She had found me and started sending me messages making the same statements she had made in her voicemail. This time, she was adding more and more details and getting rather vulgar. I did not read them out loud, but I asked him questions about what she was writing and if they were true.
He said that they were. However, he said that he had lost his job as a pilot and took the job at the hotel so he could keep the same kind of hours to spend Fridays with his nephew (I would later find out that that was a lie as well). He said that he did that for himself so that he didn’t feel like such a failure for having lost his job. Then she sent me a photo of her dog resting its head on a man’s bare chest. I knew that chest. It was where I had laid my head a thousand times and felt so safe and loved, there was no denying that it was his bare chest. I asked him why he didn’t have his shirt on in this photo. He said, “You know how I am about the pups. I didn’t want to get dog hair on my shirt, so I lifted it up.” I shook my head in disbelief and said, “Really?”
Her writing continued, stating things that he had told me about his family members dying and other statements I could conquer with. She also told me how he had said that he was using me and that this was his house, not mine. Her messages continued, getting more and more vulgar, saying things about my personal relationship with him that he had told her! He told her? He told her these things? Why? It was like I was having an out of body experience. I sat there numb trying to compute what was happening to me. So many of the details of that moment I wish I could remember, but my mind protects me, and they are gone.
I went downstairs and sat on the sofa. The sofa I had bought so I could sit next to the man I loved instead of sitting in separate recliners. The sofa that we had shared so many intimate moments, so many laughs and so much time just being together. He came down the stairs and I told him to sit, he behaved like the dog I now saw him as. I said something that he responded by saying, “I’m not a criminal.” I looked at him and said, “Well, you stole my heart.” It was like I was acting out a scene in some movie we had watched together, it all felt surreal. Then I asked him, “So, what do you think I should do?” He said, “I think you should let me stay.” I thought, and then requested that I see his credit card statements. He quickly behaved and pulled up his credit card account on his computer. Wow, he owed over $8,000 on this card and who knew how many more cards he may have, but that was not what I was looking for. I wanted to find some sort of proof that what she was saying was true. I started to bring up each monthly statement, not knowing exactly what I was looking for, but I knew something was there.
Then I saw it, a purchase for Brett Eldredge concert tickets around the date she had mentioned. There it was, in black and white, all the proof I needed to know that this woman was not lying to me, he was. I turned the computer to show him what I had found and said, “Well, I think this seals the deal. I think you need to give me my key back, pack a bag and leave.” I said it so calmly, so matter-a-factly, I think I scared both of us.
He headed upstairs to pack, I followed shortly thereafter. There he was, nervously throwing clothes into a suitcase. I asked, “Is that your suitcase or mine?” He stepped back and put his hands up like I had just caught him, again. He said that he thought it was his. I checked around and determined that yes, it was his so I told him he could continue. I watched him like a hawk, making certain he only took what was his, nothing more. I was so angry, I really don’t recall if I said anything more or if I just stood there watching this stranger, like a guard watching an inmate, void of visual emotion.
I followed him down the stairs, he handed me my key and left in the night. I don’t recall a single word being said. He was gone, but she was not. She messaged me saying how he had sent her a text saying that I had kicked him out and asking why. She wrote, he said that he can’t come back to living with you and that he is going to a hotel. Did you kick him out for good? Did I? Did I really just do that? Without a moment of hesitation, without a single doubt? Why yes, I did.
#thelieswechoosetolivewith
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