NanoWriMo Day 27- The Shoes of Baltimore

They pretended things wouldn’t happen. Sometimes issues would come to the surface and screaming matches would ensue. But it was just viewed as normal. However, they had their biggest verbal altercation four months in to the relationship. This was when Mickey told Jen he wanted to go back to school for physical therapy. He would be leaving Maryland, and plans to open more gyms and expand his brand would be put on hold. Ultimately, this could give Mickey a lucrative career if he could become a personal trainer for a professional athletic team. With a degree in physical therapy, he could carve out a nice living for himself. But Jen didn’t think he would make enough, and her mother agreed.

“Sure it will provide job security. It might also be something he enjoys. But he is still going to be limited in how much money he can bring home for you and the children. He will get used to this cushy little job and never give you everything you need. It will also take him even more time to get established, and he may even have to move around a lot, depending on the offers he receives. You don’t want that Jen. You don’t want that at all.”

It was true. Everything Jen knew was in Baltimore. She didn’t mind traveling, but it was exhausting finding new places to get her hair and nails done. She also hated finding new places to workout, and she especially hated working out in hotel gyms. Most the time it was people who had seemingly never worked out before, thinking for some reason that working out for one day while they were on vacation would make them look better. They hogged up all the machines.

No. Constantly traveling or moving would not work for Jen.

“That makes no sense,” Jen yelled after Mickey told her. “And what do you expect? Do you expect me to give up everything for you? Do you expect me to follow you around? Or is this just an excuse to break up with me? Just break up with me! Don’t tell me this elaborate story about leaving to go to school. What brought this up all of a sudden? Why are you doing this now?”

“Babe, it’s just something I’ve always wanted to do. And before I turn 30, this is the best time to do it. If I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it. The gym will still be waiting for me when I get back. I can have someone run it. Or, I could sell it to finance my school. I can always start a new one, and I can take out a new loan if I need to.”

“That makes no sense. That makes ABSOLUTELY no sense. You have all your debts paid. You are earning money right now from the gym, and you can use that money to expand. Plus, that puts everything else on held. How can you do this? People go back to school when they want to try and make more money! You are already making money and can make more! This will put you so far behind. We’ve talked about raising a family! You really think you can put all this to the side and go on some stupid hunch that you want to go back to school? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Babe, you are being way too judgmental. This is a good thing, for the both of us! Yes, we may be in different states, but that doesn’t mean we have to stop dating. I can come back on weekends or you can come up and see me.”

“Um, if you think I’m driving four hours to visit you, you have lost your mind. I am not wasting gas money on that.”

Mickey started to get angry. “So you think it would be a waste to spend money to see me?”

“I think it would be a waste to spend money to go see someone in a boring state and spend eight hours driving each weekend. Do you know the toll that would take on my car? And after awhile, you aren’t going to want to come up here every weekend because that’s the only way you’d see me.”

“But I would!” Mickey exclaimed. “I would do anything to see you babe! Why don’t want you want this to work?”
“You are making me so angry! I’m the only one who wants this to work! I’m the only one right now thinking about what this means for our future. I am the only one who is willing to think of what this means for our future family. I am the only one who is trying to keep this together. You have some selfish purpose you are trying to fulfill and ruin everything. I can’t stand you right now!”

She walked the top door of his apartment and slammed it. She stomped down the steps as loud as she possibly could. She violently pulled at her jacket on the hook outside of the commons hallway space Mickey shared with his neighbors. Jen shoved her key in the door leading to the stoop, and started slamming it open in shut when she got it open.

“Stop it!” Mickey shouted at the top of the steps. He flew down them and loudly whispered. “Stop it! Stop it! Jen, you’re making a scene. Stop it! Please stop it! Just leave! Go on and leave, please!”

She threw up her middle finger and huffed down the porch steps. She went to the corner of the street and got an Uber back to her place. It wasn’t that far of a walk, and walking probably would have helped her blow off steam, but she didn’t feel like walking.

She wanted to sit in the car and pout. She also wanted to call her mom and tell her everything about it. Tell her how selfish and how awful Mickey was being. She knew this would make her mom even more judgmental of Mickey. But at this point she didn’t care. The relationship seemed like it was over. There was no way Jen was dealing with a long-distance relationship. And the fact that Mickey had brought up the idea that she could commute four hours to see him on the weekend made her think she really had no idea who he was. Maybe this was just a way for him to start dating other girls. He didn’t really address that. Jen was lightly crying when the Uber rolled up, but she quickly wiped away her tears, stopped crying, told the driver she was the person he was supposed to pick up, and got in the back seat. When she sat down, she immediately called her mother and proceeded to tell her everything that happened. They were still talking by the time the driver dropped her off. They didn’t stop talking until late into the night.

Mickey had tried calling Jen and texting her several times. He told her to come back. He told her they could talk this out. He told her things could work. Mickey truly believed that, because he didn’t think a four hour drive should derail an entire relationship. People made relationships work in different countries, so he thought they could make it work. He could leave at 7 a.m. and get to Baltimore by 11 a.m. because that’s the normal time Jen woke up.

But Jen wasn’t being flexible. He also started to feel a lot of pressure to open more gyms and start building up his own personal brand. Mickey thought he needed more time, but maybe Jen was right. Maybe he needed to speed this process up and make things happen.

Mickey started to worry that he had just let the best thing in his life walk out the door. He thought this is what guys meant when they said their wife was the best thing that ever happened to them. That their wife changed their life. That their wife made them a better man.

None of this was true about Jen. But Mickey wanted to believe it, so it was true to him. And even though his friends and roommates knew all of this was going on, they didn’t tell him that the most positive impact Jen could have had on him was to exit his life completely.

Mickey aggressively got drunk, doing multiple shots and pounding beers. He stumbled back down the hallway steps, making as much noise as three drunk people. He swung open the door to the porch. He sat down and looked at his phone. He scrolled through the months of messages. He talked to himself about the relationship out loud on the steps. He stopped anyone who would listen to him tell his tales of woe. He was hoping that his neighbors in the apartment inside his building would come out. He wanted to talk to at least one of them about everything. But after hearing the commotion, his neighbors wisely stayed indoors. They didn’t want to get roped in with whatever was going on with Mickey. They heard her slamming things and Mickey telling her to stop. His neighbors had met her before and weren’t impressed. She just seemed boring, stuck up, and not that attractive. So they never came out, but Mickey stayed out on the steps until three in the morning. Having to get up for work in four hours, he slowly trudged his way back up the steps.

It still took him another hour to fall asleep. He would do anything to win her back. And he had an ingenious plan…

He decided to write her a love letter. He would express all of the reasons why he loved her and why they should stay together.

And Mickey thought he had an ace up her sleeve. On their first date, Mickey had slipped the glass she had drank wine from in his coat pocket. He wanted a memento of their first date, and he thought this would be a super romantic gesture in trying to win Jen back.