As if what? in Never Say Never

I tell him this morning that I am thinking of leaving for a month. To spend Christmas with my family, my birthday with my friends, a few weeks at the beach.

He says, “That sounds like a program.”

Which I cannot interpret satisfactorily as either positive or neutral. But that’s what he says.

The dinner party was fun only because I made every effort to be light and full of laughter, to try to be his conspirator, to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind us smiling, tossing my hair. But after, we climbed into bed and slept without touching. It was a fitful sleep for both of us. Early in the morning I thought about something he said, and it felt like maybe the final thing I needed to hear to really get the message: This guy does not/cannot care. He hugs me goodbye at my car in the dawn and asks for the spare key. As if… As if what?

While I am sitting on the tollway, wishing the traffic away, he calls. He doesn’t want me to be upset about him not begging me to stay with him for Christmas. But this time is different: This time it’s him that’s upset; not me. I am very much not upset. He wants to know if I was asking or telling – though he puts it like this: “I don’t want to know if you were asking or telling.” He says if going to Alabama is what I need to feel safe, then I should go. He will spend Christmas alone. Again. Christmas is a shitty time anyway, he says.

And I explain that I was neither asking nor telling, but merely floating an idea that would keep me from spending Christmas alone, that would give him some space to sort things out, since he doesn’t want to communicate with me and I find the silence difficult to tolerate and confusing. Things are not great between us, and I don’t know how many more weeks or days I can spend dating someone who doesn’t want to kiss or cuddle or be an emotionally supportive partner to me.

And I don’t need to wait till after the holidays to break up.