Page 57 of Meet Stan

“I can,” I said, surprised at how easy it was. I saw Ivy, her hair a bit longer, sitting in a big backyard while a pair of young children raced around the yard. One of them stopped and rushed over to hug my legs.

“How do you feel?”

“Good,” I said.

“Then I think maybe you should be asking yourself, not can you change—but have you changed already?”

He offered the phone and a smile. I took it and dialed her number.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ivy

I felt like shit the morning after my breakup with Stan. I kept checking my phone to see if he would text, or call, or something. Maybe show some sign that maybe he wasn’t a completely heartless bastard who had used me in exactly the way he told me he would.

Then, almost twenty-four hours on the dot after I’d left him eviscerated on that rooftop, he called me. At that point, I was so angry, I didn’t answer. He left a voicemail, and after a moment’s consideration, I listened to it.

“Hey, what in the actual fuck?” He sputtered. “I mean, what was all of that? We never talked about all of that. I said dramatic, not fucking brutal. God damn, did you have—did you have to say all that shit?”

It sounded like he dropped his phone. A thunk and lots of cursing followed. Then the voicemail ended.

I slammed my phone down on the sofa beside me and fumed. What in the actual fuck? That’s how he decided to talk to me? Here I thought maybe he wanted to make up, or at least to recover from the absolute cluster fuck that our dramatic break up had been.

No, instead, he wants to berate me because I damaged his ego. The next message wasn’t any better.

“Hey, I got cut off before I had a chance to get to my point.”

He had a point? Other than being a prick?

“My point is—bravo. Fucking bravo. You played your role to perfection. Perfection.”

“Because you wanted me to, you prick. You can’t be mad because I did what you told me to do!”

Of course, he couldn’t actually hear me as it was a recording, and he started talking over me.

“You humiliated me in front of my friends, my peers—great fucking job. I should give you a bonus.”

I ended the voice mail. I was very angry. For some reason, I decided to listen to the next one, and it got even worse.

“Might I remind you, this was a fake relationship.”

“Fuck you,” I snapped, though I knew he couldn’t hear me.

“So how come you’re for real pissed off at me? I mean, fuck, this is what we agreed upon. You can’t be mad at me for this. It’s just not fair—”

I turned off the voice mail. I then blocked his number and deleted all of his prior messages. God, what an asshole. Instead of calling to make up with me, maybe tell me that he feels the same way for me that I do for him, he insults me and treats me like shit.

I might as well have been a whore to him. I was too mad to sleep, though I had an early flight. I wound up spending most of the night sitting there on the sofa fuming mad. I went through a lot of different cycles of thoughts.

At first, I tried to psych myself up about the new job. Fuck Stan. He didn’t matter anymore. I was going to a new office, in a new country, where I would be more than just an interim project manager. It was the real deal, and I was going to use it as a springboard to greater things.

My bravado crumbled in the grim reality that no matter how big a jerk he’d been acting of late, I still had feelings for Stan. Maybe even loved him. That made me break down in an ugly crying fit, with lots of snorting and sobbing and snot.

After my crying fit, I went into the shower and just sort of felt numb. I didn't really think of much of anything other than the practicalities of getting my body clean and catching my flight on time.

I knew it was a long, long flight to Singapore. I didn’t want to wear a really nice suit on such a long flight, so I dressed business casual. I would have time to go to the hotel and change before coming to my new office.

I tried not to look at myself in the mirror too much. My lack of sleep and crying had left my face swollen, and I didn’t feel like a million bucks, or even fifty cents at that point.

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