A Text To End All Texts

So after meekly driving home in my second-class citizen rental (Kate named it Harvey), I unpacked and started a load of laundry, fed and scratched the neglected little heads of both cats, cleaned up an inconveniently placed streak of cat hack and checked my phone.

A message from Scott.

“So was it a blast? Hope so!”             

I can practically hear him saying it. Genuinely happy that I am happy. Points in his favor as a man. Lars and J. hate-hate-hated the very notion of Girls Weekends. How naive of them. Without Girls Weekends to keep us happy and sane and grounded in reality I’d have independently plotted both their murders long before I left either of them. Smart men know this. A happy wife is rarely a homicidal wife. And a good girlfriend will talk her friend out of an ill-fated murder attempt inspired by an episode of Monk long before she’s gotten to the point of buying the leg of lamb to use as a blunt force instrument.

And actually, my knee-jerk reaction would be to gush to him. I have had such a great time and have so many hilarious stories to tell him – tell anyone actually – but I decide against it. It would be the wrong thing to do. Misleading in a way that will make him think he’s gotten an inch closer, when I need for him to let go of the few remaining threads that bind us together, however loosely. I need him to have boundaries – boundaries waaaay outside of where he probably envisions them. 

But I don’t exactly want to have to say anything that sounds like, “My friends Priscilla and Kate came and surveyed the landscape and we agree that the little orange flags need to be dug up and moved way over THERE!”

So I do nothing.

Sometimes I am really good at that.

And about a week later,  I know not why, I get another text from Scott. An upheaval of sorts. He does not want me to blame myself for the demise of our relationship, the reasons had nothing to do with me. (I am immediately and sarcastically replaying the George Costanza “It’s not you, it’s me” Seinfeld episode in my head). He admits to nothing specific (Thank God) but says he was afraid to talk to me. (Because I am my mother’s daughter?) And he realizes that he’s lost me forever. And that he will have to live with it. 

And again I do nothing.