An Accidental Love Story: Part 7

A Couple 3am Nights

The night we built the bed we finished up around eleven. I told Dakota to take a shower and that I'd get in bed with him shortly. Once the shower was running I told Ryan to be quick.

We were not quick. Not even close. We went for two rounds, chatting in between and after, and I finally got in bed around 3:30am. This was the night before I returned to work from maternity leave. Off to a great start!

But seriously, this just proved how addicted to him I was. Well, still am, really. Knowing Dakota wanted me in bed, knowing I had to work in the morning, knowing that I was going to feel like absolute dog shit the next day… none of it mattered. I couldn’t break away from him. I literally felt intoxicated. Slightly light headed & dizzy.

It’s still hard to believe from this to our fallout was less than 2 weeks.

A couple days after our incredibly late night I wake up to an ominous message:

I laugh a bit. It was only a matter of time until she found out we were seeing each other again, I knew that. He seemed to be under the impression that despite him taking months to leave her she would stay oblivious the whole time. I decided not to say ‘no shit, she was going to find out eventually’ because it felt unhelpful and I knew he was already very anxious.

Well. Whatever. Not really my problem to deal with. Except… fuck. She had gone through his phone while he was asleep and there’s, like, a lot of nudes in our chat. Are my fucking nudes going to be on the internet?

As I typed that I realized how stupid that sounds to you, person who definitely found my blog via the nudes I posted on the internet, but it’s different. I don’t need her posting them on Facebook or something so that my friends and family see them.

Anyway, she’s pissed. She says she’s leaving for the weekend to stay with some family a couple hours away. This means he & I can’t go to the lake like we planned, which I assume is why she did it. I’m annoyed that she literally always fucks up our plans but we’re reaching end game and soon she’ll be irrelevant so I just deal with it.

He’s taking his kid to a birthday party since she was going to do it but skipped town. It’s at a big arcade so I mention I can come hang out with him while the children are busy running around.

I start to reply and a second message pops up:

Umm well those feel pretty conflicting.

As soon as I press send I get a text:

Turns out she did! I blocked his account immediately. His texts were painfully slow the rest of the day. Apparently she showed up at the arcade, unannounced. She messaged me from his account trying to lure me there, I guess?

Well that’s a lot of drama that I wasn’t involved in. They make a scene at the party which is embarrassing for their kid so yikes, good parenting on that front guys.

Because she knows now she’s been extremely combative with him leaving the house. So I don’t see him for a little over a week. But we had rescheduled our lake day so he was coming over in the evening and we planned to head out the next morning. I was excited. He always does the bedtime routine with his kid before coming over so I told him to just let me know when he was on the way.

Bed time is around eight, so when it’s eleven and I haven’t heard anything I’m quite annoyed.

Now you might not know what that means and if you don’t count yourself lucky. But to those of us on the mental illness train this was not a good message to receive.

Now, I know him well enough to know that meant he had no intention of coming over. This was to get me to shut up for a bit. He'd deal with me being pissed off he bailed later.

Five and a half minutes pass and I am opening my car door when I get his message.

So I wait. About seven minutes. And then I get back in my car. We live on opposite sides of the city so it’s a decent drive. I snap a picture of an exit a few miles north of my house. He doesn’t open it. I snap the next picture of an exit sign about halfway between my house and downtown. He doesn’t open it. I’m starting to get worried.

I keep driving. He finally responds.

I reply with another picture as I’m passing through downtown.

I get pulled over. I snap a picture of the lights to both Dakota and Ryan.

“I pulled you over because you were doing 80 in a 55.”

Well, fuck. “I’m sorry.” Like, what else is there to say here?

“Any reason you’re in such a hurry?”

“Um,” I let out a nervous laugh because let’s face it, this sounds like a lame ass excuse. “I’m worried my friend is going to hurt themselves. I’m on my way to their house.” My voice trembled when I spoke. Nice, maybe they’ll believe it if I sound legitimately terrified.

“License and insurance?”

I grimace, I knew that question was next. “Okay soooo I couldn’t find my wallet before leaving the house… I was in a bit of a rush.”

“Can you step out of the vehicle?”

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuck. I’ve never been asked that before and it seems like a bad sign. I started to get out but I freeze. Is that what they said? Or did I mishear and they’re going to think I’m being aggressive? Or fleeing the scene? I’m not about to get tazed in the middle of the highway, fuck that.

“You want me to get out of the car?” I confirm.

“Yes ma’am.”

It’s just past midnight on a week night and I’m using slow, deliberate movements to not startle two State Trooper as if they’re stray cats in my yard. Perhaps I need to make better decisions in my life.