Chapter 19 — Albertson’s
Over the course of the past few days, things have kind of mellowed out. Instead of coming straight home from work, I was actually socializing with friends and coworkers. It wasn’t because I wanted to avoid the girl. It was more of me going back to the way things were before she was here. Ever since I gave her that kiss she the night we broke up, she has really been trying make me remember what things were like when we were together. I tell her that I still appreciate her making lunch for me, but I didn’t think it would be a good idea if she continued to do that. She tells me that she doesn’t care that we aren’t together, she is still a caring person. I feel like I know better coming from this girl, and I think she has ulterior motives. She still sneaks into my bed in the mornings, and I still hand the steering wheel over from my brain to my body. What am I doing?! I really need to stop fucking her because it is definitely going to send her mixed signals. After fucking this morning, she goes back to the couch and starts working on her old Notebook. Eventually walks up to my bedroom door and knocks on the frame with a puppy dog face. She says she is hungry and wants to get some food from the super market. I agree to go and she gleefully claps while skipping into the living room. I can’t help but smile as I scoot to the foot of the bed. I start dressing for the store as I hear her command from the kitchen, “Today is Saturday, and it is your turn to wash the dishes on the weekend”. I sigh and shake my head, ignoring her statement. “Did you hear me?”, she calls out when I fail to respond. “I heard you”, I reply. “So are you going to wash them before or after we go to the store?”, she asks assertively. I ask her again why she wants me to wash the dishes, just to hear her say it was my job to do so on the weekend. In light of my new mission to go back to the way things were before she was here, I laughingly reply, “I will wash my dishes whenever I want to”, as I walk into the kitchen and see the two plates and a fork in the sink. I guess in retrospective it was kind of a rude thing to say, but at that moment I just wanted to break free from anything she tried to control. She is obviously hurt by my statement, but I choose to grab my keys and usher her out the front door with little time to react. Eventually we make it a few blocks from Albertson’s when she says “I’ve never been treated so horribly in my life”. I ignore this first comment and maintain my asshole composure. We walk one more block before she comes at me again. I defend my comment at the house. We continue to walk and argue until about 30 feet into the vegetable section of Albertson’s where I stop and turn to her so we can end this public stunt. I eventually realize and admit to her that I was wrong saying what I said and how I said it. Unfortunately that is not enough for her. After thirty minutes of publicly arguing, she decides that in front of this audience of vegetables would be the perfect place to explode about everything right now. Wave after wave of customers have now witnessed our argument in the middle of the vegetable section in a foreign language. After I apologize to her again for being mean, she breaks down into tears and starts making a scene. If I wasn’t embarrassed of the situation before, I am mortified now. She says she realizes that she is controlling but she tries to justify it with her caring about me. She goes on to say she can be better now and continues to cry. I try to calm her down enough so that we can walk through the super market isles. I ask her what she wants to get to eat but she keeps dazed look at the floor and responds that she doesn’t care. We leave Albertson’s without buying a thing. When we get home she continues to tell me she can become better and that she will change. I tell her that I don’t want her to change and that I felt that if we did get back together, things would eventually melt into the mess it has become now. We end up laying down in bed and cradling each other like two wounded animals. I do feel bad for my abrupt comment and that is why I have my tail between my legs.
