I fear I've forgotten what real, healthy love is.

~

"I saw G at the event," she told me. She's the girlfriend of my ex, Paul, and the most terrifying woman I've ever met. I don't like her, but I don't actively show it, because I don't want her to tear out my throat with her teeth. Somehow I managed to get into her good books, though, and she likes me. I'd like things to stay like that.

That all being said, I have no issue if she wants to fight my battles with me.

"I told him: 'You and I are going to have a talk. And it's not going to be a nice talk'," she continued. "I don't really know if he was being sincere or not."

"Once you get past that sheen of charm," I tell her, "his responses are pretty honest."

"Ah," she said. "Then he was ashamed. I tore him a new one for being an asshole to you." She made a fist on her beer glass. "No one messes with my people."

I'm her people?

"You know," I said, "it's kind of sad. I think I knew him best of anyone in his life."

"Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "He said as much."

~

I was telling this story to Ian.

"Yeah," he said with a laugh. "He cornered me at the event to ask why you weren't talking to him."

"He what?" I was angry and amused all at once.

Ian laughed too. "Yeah. I think he was trying to figure out how much you'd told people. I told him he fucked up, and he fucked up bad."

"That he did. That he did."

~

As much as I'm wallowing in schadenfreude at the moment, there is a little part of me that misses G.

And I know I said I wouldn't post about him anymore, but I think this is allowed.

~

"What would you do if he got down on his knees and begged forgiveness?" she asked.

"Backhand him," I said without missing a beat. "Then I'd give it some thought. But definitely backhand him first." I shook my head. "But he wouldn't do that. I know him too well for that."

"Yeah," she said, flexing her hand on her glass. "Sad, that."

.

~Rosie.

Before&After