Marcus sent the second transfer after taking out a loan, which he made sure I knew because apparently men cannot suffer financially without wanting applause for the narrative arc. He told me the interest rate was bad. He told me he was picking up work wherever he could. He told me he understood if I did not care, but wanted me to know he was serious.
Again, performance humility.
Again, the need to be seen trying.
Sometimes he slipped in little memories. A song lyric. A reference to a trip we took to Asheville. A random sentence like, I drove past that diner you used to love.
They were bait.
Not even subtle bait.
Emotional fishing with expired worms.
I ignored every single one.
That does not mean I never got angry enough to answer in my head. I absolutely did. I just got better at keeping the sharpest parts of me offline. There is no medal for restraint, which is unfortunate because by then I had earned at least bronze.
When I wanted to lash out, I wrote things in my notes app and deleted them. When I wanted to ask if the other woman also got a speech about curiosity, I called Lauren. When I wanted to know if he ever lay awake thinking about the exact moment he traded a future for an ego itch, I went for a walk and let myself be mad without making it interactive.
Work helped. Not because labor is healing or whatever inspirational nonsense gets printed on mugs. Because routine gives pain less room to improvise. I had deadlines, irritated clients, a supervisor who communicated exclusively through urgency, and enough daily friction to keep me from dissolving into self-mythology. I did not want to become the woman who could only talk about the wedding that did not happen. I wanted to be the woman who went through that and still remembered how to answer emails, buy detergent, and laugh at dumb things in line at the pharmacy.
My father took me to dinner one evening, just the two of us, at a neighborhood restaurant with sticky menus and terrible lighting. Our relationship had always relied on side-by-side affection rather than explicit emotional discussion, so this felt strangely formal, like two people negotiating a treaty neither knew how to write.
After a long silence, he asked, “Is keeping contact open for the money messing with your head?”
I looked down at my plate.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“But losing that money messed with your life too.”
“Exactly.”
He took a sip of water.
“Just make sure you know the price of every conversation.”
I thought about that for days.
Every exchange cost something. Focus. Energy. Emotional drag. Even when I was in control, even when I kept it dry and transactional, access is never free, especially for someone who has already used it badly.
