Archive of Our Own ^beta

Today, my boyfriend broke up with me. 

No, let's try that again: 

Today, my ex-boyfriend announced our breakup to me, via a note in which he misquoted Mark Twain.

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

- K.

It was a piece of yellow lined paper folded neatly in quarters lying on the suspiciously clear kitchen table. Its contents were written in pen. Usually when K left me notes to buy groceries or wait for a phone-call they were open and written in big letters with heavy marker, so I couldn't possibly miss them.

I think I already knew something was wrong when I unfolded the note even though I didn't let myself believe it.

Ultimately this breakup note, however inelegant, was not a knife in the back. It was the culmination of the last dying gasps of our relationship. A relationship which I must admit in the interests of honesty I've often had my doubts about. Right from the start one of the first things I told K was that I might not be able to give him what he wants.

Once I finished reading the note I stood frozen, struggling to process, unable to let the obvious meaning sink in. Somehow I thought if I were very still I could cause it to mean something else. That of course was nonsense. K had broken up with me. Now I had to ask myself, was it somehow my fault?

"I will give you everything I have to offer."

I remember saying that. I meant it... at the time.

The last two months with K have been terrible. Before that... it wasn't so bad. I think we were happy. I know I was happy and he said he was, too. Why wouldn't I believe him? The truth is I think this breakup was a long time coming. Maybe I should have cut the cord a long time ago. Lately he's just been so needy and I...

Truth be told, I was cruel to him. He wanted so much from me, much more than I had to give him. The more he asked for the harder I pushed back. I screened his calls, I avoided dates, and as for sex... It just wasn't the same. I used to think lack of sex ruined relationships. Now I'm pretty sure it's the other way around. 

K and I had a strange relationship in many ways. It seemed normal when I was inside it. Everything I did, everything I said, had a reason.

Wait. I don't want you to think it was all bad. We were happy together, for a while.

We used to go on picnics on Sunday afternoons. He'd forget to get groceries on Saturday and so we'd pack whatever slim pickings were left in both our fridges and buy fresh rolls on the way to the park. We'd make up weird sandwich combinations and half the time they'd be too gross to finish. After that we'd fall asleep on the grass.

He used to show up in my place unannounced on days when he knew I was working late. Sometimes he got there before I did. I would walk in exhausted, ready to just drop my bag and coat and crawl into bed in my clothes. But there he was brewing tea and cooking dinner. He's a terrible cook.

He borrowed all my books and would forget to bring them back and I would have to remind him half a dozen times. He tried to get me into his favorite webcomics and he would keep track of how far into the archives I got each time. He begged me to grow out my hair. Sometimes he made up cute names for me. He liked to kiss the spot behind my left ear.

I told you. We were happy. So what went wrong? Like I said, we had good times. We were together for almost a year, after all.

I'm trying to remember the first time I felt things starting to go wrong...

A friend of a friend was throwing a party for someone's birthday or graduation or divorce. I don't even know. Neither of us knew the guy the party was for. This wasn't the sort of event we usually went to. Ordinarily, we're both the type to prefer a quiet evening at home, or a small get together of just a few friends.

Given the size of the party I guess it wasn't surprising that we both ran into a few people we knew, but hadn't spoken to (outside of Facebook) in a long time. Naturally we had to introduce each other. For some reason this simple social interaction caught me completely off-guard. Everyone I interacted with regularly already knew K, and knew how much time we spent together.

I was cornered by a class-mate to whom I hadn't spoken in five years or so. He wanted to know where I was working, where I was living, what I was doing with my life. And who I was seeing. He turned to look at K meaningfully.

I introduced him by name. He didn't say anything, not then. It wasn't the first time we'd come up against that wall, but somehow I'd managed to forget all our previous conversations and he caught me by surprise.

Later that night we met a co-worker of his. "This is Orchid," he said.ⁱ He looked like he was about to say something else, then he stopped and gave me this sidelong glance, and smiled to cover the sudden gap in words.

We talked about it later that night on the way back to his place. For once, he was the one who started the conversation. He put me on the spot, but I couldn't fault him. Not then.

"Why don't you want to call me your boyfriend?"

"I don't like the word 'boyfriend'."

He asked me why, more than once.

People take this romance business so seriously. Everything has to be exactly so. You can't just spend time with someone and like it, you have to give things names and titles. You have to reach milestones. You have to have conversations about your relationship, where it's going, and where you see yourself in five years.

What if I don't want that?

That's just not what I'm looking for in a relationship. That became one of the things that drew us further apart. K wanted me to be more serious about us. I was happy with the way things were. We played together, read together, ate together and slept together. The sex was good. Why couldn't that be enough?

K needed something more out of our relationship. The problem was, he couldn't seem to tell me what that something was. I felt his dissatisfaction and I tried to make him happier, but without knowing what was lacking, I couldn't really fill the void.

"I think what we're doing is a hell of a lot more than 'just friends', whatever that means."

If there's a clear, delineated border between friendship and romance, I'm not sure what it is. But K, he believes that I've denied him something, that I've been holding something back.

The one thing I knew I could give him was more time. We started seeing each other more and more. I spent the night with him as often as possible, holding him close as though my skin could transfer all the affection I held from me to him and make him believe in it. Whenever I spent the night I would leave something of mine behind or forget something important at my place. As more and more of my stuff found its way all over K's apartment it became obvious to both of us what the logical next step was.

So we moved in together. All the stress and drama of where to put what, who needed how much room for their things, what to throw out and what to keep... It put a lot of strain on our relationship. For a while it seemed like all we did was fight, and only about the smallest, most meaningless things.

One kitchen, one bathroom, one living room. That's enough for two people, right? Then how come it felt so damn crowded in there all the time? Coming home from work and seeing K there wasn't as comforting as when he'd show up at my apartment with takeout soup on stormy nights. Eating breakfast with him every morning at our kitchen table didn't feel like a treat anymore. If anything, it was starting to feel like a chore.

I didn't want to be this person. I didn't want to feel anger bubble up inside me every time I looked at K's face. I didn't want to flinch when he reached over to touch me. It was hard to face the fact that my relationship with K had become a burden to me.

Friends ask me why I didn't break it off sooner. I don't have any good answer. During those last few weeks our time together was mostly sour. We became like a stereotypical sitcom married couple. Whatever desire I had to accommodate K's wishes, to meet him halfway, had all but evaporated. I began avoiding him outright, manufacturing excuses to stay at work late, going out of my way to arrange outings with friends.

Instead of looking forward to seeing K at the end of each day, or on the weekend, I began resenting him. When I came home late he'd ask me where I'd been and I would snap at him. Sometimes he would complain that he never saw me and I would accuse him of monopolizing all my free time. We argued over everything. Eventually all that drama had to boil over into a knock-down, drag-out, relationship-redefining fight. And so it did.

I'll be honest, I picked a fight with him. Maybe it was my cowardly, inelegant way of bringing things to a head, or maybe I just couldn't bear the simmering rancorous soup that I'd been cooking. Now it had to boil over.

K wanted to go see some movie that was finally coming out after having been hyped up all year and he insisted that I come with him. Another time I might have gone along with him even if I thought the movie would bore me, but he didn't ask. He said, "We should go see the premiere this Friday."

I don't know why that bothered me as much as it did.

"I'm not going with you," I said, simple as that.

He was stunned. "What? Why?"

"Can't you do anything without me holding your hand? I'm not your babysitter."

If I thought he was in shock before, now he was totally speechless. He didn't say a thing, just took his jacket and left.

For a while I was spitefully glad to have the apartment to myself. When the hours started stretching by I looked up from my book and found that K was still gone. I didn't know whether to feel guilty or worried. Wasn't this what I was after? A few hours apart? Maybe speaking up was the right thing to do, although I could have done it a little more gently.

Hours later K finally returned. "I'm sorry," he said. "Let's go to bed."

We avoided a fight, but the fight wasn't gone. It was just... waiting. K was hurt and angry, and I still felt like I was pressing my hands against the walls of an invisible box that was far too small for me. Sometimes you can feel a fight waiting to happen. It's almost like the air is full of tension, like an electric storm about to break. After weeks of straining not to explode, one little fight had made all that nerve-wracking energy just... fizzle out. 

I wish I could say I had the good sense to face the situation head-on and resolve it, once and for all. I wish I hadn't tried to ignore my ominous feelings and pretend that everything was fine, would be fine. Pretend we weren't falling apart. We tiptoed around each other. I was still feeling a tinge of guilt from the last fight. K was... something. We spoke only about everyday things, and then little. The breakfast table was horribly silent with no conversation to cover up the sounds of eating. I told myself that we had patched things up. The fight was just a small hiccup in an otherwise happy relationship. We had found the problem and fixed it. 

We went on in quiet, dispiriting domestic bliss for about a week. The next time the silence was broken, it was K who spoke up. Our anniversary was coming up. I had totally forgotten about it. 

"What should we do?" he asked. 

A queasy feeling rose in my throat and I didn't know why. He hadn't done anything wrong! In fact, he said exactly the right thing. I tried to hide my sudden inexplicable distaste. He must have seen something in my face, though, because he finally asked the question we had both been avoiding for so long. 

"What's wrong?" 

I was too quick to answer. "Nothing!" 

"Something is wrong. You're not happy!" 

"Of course I'm happy!" 

It seemed like such a ridiculous accusation. I had a good job, good friends, good health and a very attentive boyfriend. How could I possibly be unhappy? 

"I know you, Orchid. I can tell when you're unhappy."

Why would he say something like that?  "You don't know me better than I know myself. Stop trying to tell me how I feel!" 

But K had siezed on the subject of my unhappiness, and he had no intention of letting go. "If you know your feelings so well, then tell me. What are you feeling right now?" 

I was flustered. "Fine," I said. "I feel fine." 

He looked ready to scream. 

That was when I lost my temper. "Stop it! You're always trying to make things sound worse than they really are! Why do you have to dig up reasons why everything is terrible?" 

K was stunned. "When have I ever done that?" 

What I'd said felt true, but I couldn't think of a single example. Suddenly I felt very foolish. 

"Never mind," I said. "Forget about it." 

"What's wrong, Orchid?" K asked. 

"Nothing," I said. "I don't want to fight." 

"Orchid," he said, and suddenly I hated that he called me that. 

He said, "Orchid, we're already fighting. Saying you don't want to isn't going to make it stop."

"What will make it stop, then?"

"We either move forward, or we don't move at all." 

I felt sluggish and I couldn't wrap my head around his words. "Are you saying you want to break up?" 

"No," he said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. "But we can't go on like this."  

"Why not?" I said. "Why can't things go back to the way they used to be? We were happy, before." 

"We need for move forward," he said again. "I need to move forward." 

I didn't know what moving forward meant. I still don't know what it means. "You're asking for something that I don't know how to give you." 

"Orchid," he said, "don't be like that."

But 'that' turned out to be exactly what I was. What I'd been since the start, I suppose, although I was fool enough not to notice it. Wishful thinking, maybe. I thought if I pushed hard enough eventually it would stop pushing back. 

I wanted to say "Don't" too. To scream it. Don't make me choose, not between you and myself.

But all I said was, "I can't. K, I can't go on like this."

And all he said was, "Fine."

It was anything but fine, really. But at least now we both knew it.

In the end I just had to accept that whatever K wants in a relationship is not something I can give him. We had good times together, and I still have those fond memories to lean on. Or will, anyway, once the anger and resentment fades.

K thought I was withholding affection. That's what he meant in his note. I gave him all I had; I'll never know why that wasn't enough for him.

In the end, I suppose I'm almost glad K ended things. I don't know what I'll do next. Go to work, I suppose. Chat with friends. I don't think I'll be going on any dates for a while. Maybe dating's not right for me. Maybe I should rethink my entire relationship strategy.

Maybe next time will be better.