He just fucking blindsided me. I wasn’t sure what to expect when he told me he wanted to talk but that was not it, embarrassingly. My imagination had run wild and I had actually been a little optimistic. Fucking stupid. So stupid.
“I hope you didn’t have different expectations,” I said. My voice wasn’t shaking, good. I didn’t want him to know how much that had fucking hurt.
I was appalled with myself.
How had I ever let myself think that anything meaningful could ever happen between us?
I set the terms for Christ’s sake. I only wanted one night. I didn’t want any complications. I didn’t want to get into a relationship. All it took was having sex a few times to change my mind, but the feeling wasn’t mutual.
“No, no,” he shook his head and cleared his throat. “I didn’t. I just had to make sure that we were on the same page. I know that I wasn’t very consistent while we were in the cabin. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t give you the wrong idea about what would happen once we were out.”
“Well, no worries. I had no expectations going into this and I have no expectations now. Is th
at everything you wanted to say to me?” I said.
He looked a little bit confused for a second and there was a small part of me that thought he was going to change his mind; that wanted him to change his mind.
“Good. Good. I just wanted to talk to you to make sure everything was on the table.”
“Great. What happened in the cabin, stays there. So, are we done here?”
I walked out of Toby’s suite feeling like my legs were going to give out underneath me. Tears were flowing down my face as I let myself into my suite.
“Stupid, so stupid!” I crumpled into the large couch, finally alone.
I couldn’t believe it. What was I thinking? I wanted to blame Toby. What kind of psychopath had sex with a woman and then fell asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms, only to tell her that he didn’t want to be together? I had to blame myself at the same time though because I had allowed it. I allowed it every single time.
I could’ve told him no a million different times. Every time he came on to me, I could’ve pushed him away but I never did. Even outside of that, I shouldn’t have expected the events that took place in the cabin to change the way he felt about relationships. He was a young billionaire living in New York City, why would he want to get tied down with anyone?
What was I thinking? Did I even have what it took to have a relationship? I hadn’t wanted one in the first place. It had been a long time since Paul, but I didn’t think I was ready. I wanted the sex without any of the emotional responsibility and that was what I had gotten. I couldn’t be mad or hurt now that I had gotten what I asked for. Here I was embarrassed because I wasn’t being honest with myself, but it was okay because he put an end to all ambiguity.
This was for the best. It didn’t feel that way though. This was not the way I imagined my first stay at a luxury resort to go. Toby had just broken my heart but I had to go around the rest of our time here like that hadn’t happened. Being around him, just thinking about him would remind me of what I wasn’t getting from him. What I wasn’t getting but irrationally wanted.
I couldn’t do it.
I was going to lose my mind. I was going to have a miserable time pretending that I was okay. I was not okay and staying here was going to make it worse. That would mean that he won but I didn’t care. I wanted to be able to lick my wounds in peace. I wouldn’t be able to stand seeing him here. The important part of this trip was over, I technically didn’t need to be here anymore. That was it. I was out.
I got everything packed and made a call to the airline to change my flight to tonight. I asked the front desk to arrange a car to take me to Denver for the flight. In the car on the way to the airport, I wrote an email to Missy, a text was too immediate, and she would see it too soon.
Hey! By the time you read this, I’m probably going to be in the air. I figured you wouldn’t need me for the rest of the trip since the photoshoot is over. I decided to head back to New York. I’ve had enough of the snow to last a lifetime. Turns out, getting trapped in the cabin messed me up more than I thought. I’ll be okay though; you have a good time with everyone else.
Hopefully, that sounded happy and upbeat enough for her not to try and check on me, or even worse, cut her trip short and come looking for me. It seemed somewhat possible, but I couldn’t come up with a better excuse and I didn’t want to admit the truth. It was too humiliating.
I was back in my apartment late that night. I didn’t do anything except go directly to sleep. The next morning, I was hoping to feel better, but that didn’t happen. I was well-rested, but that was about it. I still felt humiliated for making the assumptions that I had made about Toby and myself and it didn’t help that I wasn’t getting to hang out at the resort anymore. There were spas in the city. If I really wanted the experience, I’d pay for it, and if I was too cheap for that, I would DIY it at home. It was fine.
I was fine. Everything was back to normal, and I was going to live my life like that last seventy-two hours had not taken place.
I went to the kitchen and looked around. I hadn’t been here for a while and like the genius I was given my recent choices, I hadn’t cleaned my refrigerator out before the trip. I braced myself, holding my breath before opening the refrigerator. Everything still looked normal but I knew that a lot of food had gone bad.
Without even sniffing the milk first, I dumped it down the sink. I did the same with the half-eaten container of Greek yogurt. For the food, I grabbed a garbage bag and started filling it with the leftovers that I did not want to investigate, and the contents of the Tupperware that had been in there too long. Noticing that there was more spoiled food in the bag than in the refrigerator, I decided to say goodbye to all of it except the bottled water and cans. What a waste.
In a tiny way that symbolized a new start, didn’t it?
I needed one. I needed to forget that I had ever met Toby before. I wished that I could turn back time so that we had never slept together in the first place. That was what opened the floodgates. My stupid big mouth being horny and jealous the night that my boss got a proposal from her perfect, billionaire boyfriend.
I lugged the bag down the stairs so I could throw it out in the alley dumpster.
So, no more doing stupid stuff like this again, right? No more getting involved with guys and thinking that I could handle any noncommittal relationship. Clearly, I couldn’t. I didn’t want to do it. The actual benefits of a relationship were the intimacy, vulnerability, and comfort you got with someone who wanted to share those things with you. Dick was not that hard to come by and non-committed dick was even easier to find. I was done.