Lesson number two in stalking your ex-girlfriend? Don't do anything stupid.

I hadn't planned on doing anything stupid, abysmally or otherwise. I'd actually planned to take Jeremy's good but unsolicited advice and get the fuck out of there. I was even in the act of getting off my ass and thinking about trying to catch the last train over to the west end before I had to eat the cost of an Uber. I was going to get out of there—

But...

Yeah, go ahead and gloat. You knew it was coming.

Let me break it down for you so you can picture it properly. The door at the top of the stairs that led to Jaime's kitchen slammed open with some force and all I could hear was yelling from inside the apartment, before Jaime shoved her way through the door, pausing only to yell back into the apartment.

"Well FUCK YOU TOO!"

Jaime slammed the door behind her and stomped down the stairs, the screen door slowly wheezing shut behind her as if making sure she was gone before it dared to close. Jaime stomped over to the single chair in front of the mural, simultaneously pulling her coat shut over her mismatched pyjamas and patting the pockets as if looking for something. She found the glass pipe she was looking for and just stared at it for a long moment, clearly wondering if it was what she really needed right then.

As for me, I had frozen into place in front of the mural, suddenly too terrified to run and hoping like hell that I would just appear to be another one of the painted figures on the wall. After all, it was dark and if she went through with it, Jaime was about to be stoned, so there was a fairly good chance I could pull this off, right?

Jaime found the lighter and raised it to the pipe—

I have no idea what happened. I swear I didn't make a sound, didn't make any sudden moves, but Jaime had whipped around to look at the mural, a bemused look on her face, then—

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!"

The glass pipe hit me square between the eyes and I yelped, more surprised my ex-girlfriend, and now way more bruised and concussed. She had scrambled backward, ready to run even as she threw the pipe at me, but now she paused, something clicking in her brain that this wasn't some ordinary lurker waiting to assault her.

"Bob?" she asked incredulously and I raised my hand, thrilling at the fact that she was using my name and for the first time in a long time it hadn't been preceded with a "fuck you" or "you asshole".

"Please don't throw anything else at me," I said. "I don't think my head can take the beating and your aim is deadly."

"Fuck you Bob!"

Ahh, there it was, like music to my ears.

"Just so you know, this isn't what it looks like."

Jaime just raised her eyebrow and I winced, accepting how caught and especially how guilty I was.

"Okay, fine, it is what it looks like, but it's just not as bad as it looks. I mean, I was literally just leaving, but then you came out... please don't do that..."

That was my reaction to Jaime pulling out her phone and dialling very deliberately.

"Why is it that everytime I see you, it instantly goes to you yelling at me—"

"You're on my roof in the middle of the night! Buy a fucking clue, Bob! I don't want to talk to you!"

"Maybe one more time for clarity?" Yes, I was being a jackass, but it's a defense thing and almost guaranteed at least one tiny smile. At least normally.

"Jesus Christ Bob! Roof! Night! You! Stalker! Get it?"

"Why do you hate me so much?" I pleaded with her.

That one actually made her pause and then this look of what can be only described as pain came across her face for a few seconds. She shook her head slowly and then said rather quietly: "I don't hate you Bob."

"It sure as hell feels like it from over here," I responded and were those tears biting at my eyes, daring me to wipe them away with the back of my hand?

I saw Jaime looking to the safety of the stairs, everything in her screaming that she needed to get the fuck away from me. Normally I would even agree. If your stalker shows up on your roof in the middle of the night, get inside and lock the doors. Don't stand around yelling at them and giving them shit for the sake of drama or whatever. Get the fuck inside and call the fucking cops.

It killed me to see that Jaime thought of me like that, but yet... she wasn't running.

"Why are you here? Is this a thing with you now? Spying on me?"

I shook my head, knowing that there was no way she was going to believe me. "I just needed to see you. I needed to know you were okay?"

"That's such bullshit and you know it."

"I'll never admit it and you can quote me on that."

There was a long moment where we just looked at each other, no yelling, not blaming, just me and her, she and me.

"There is never going to be a you and me ever again Bob. I hope you know that."

"You've been pretty clear, yeah."

"You still have hope."

"You don't hate me, so that's a start, right? And I'll never stop loving you."

"You know I called the cops, right? Just now?"

Ow. That hurt.

"We were in love--"

"I had an abortion Bob. When I left you, I was pregnant. And I ended it."

Fuck.

Oh fuck.

I didn't say that. Maybe I should have, but my mouth wasn't connecting to my brain anymore, and there was just this numbness that was spreading out from my head and working its way down my body. I realized that I was grinning and wondered where that had come from, that uncomfortable and utterly stupid expression that had no place here, no. But there it was, frozen into place, totally disconnected from reality, from emotion, from thought or biology or the slow beat-beat-beat of my now frozen heart. Words were forming, but I don't know what they were, didn't know how to think or taste them, only wanted to bite them back and keep them from getting out like the poison that I knew they would be.

I looked at the love of my life and I didn't feel that familiar warmth of love, that familiar flutter of butterflies in my stomach at the sight of her. There was the rush of acid and I had no doubt that those fucking butterflies were dead or at least as stunned as I was.

"You were pregnant?" I finally managed to say, and those were not the words I wanted to scream at her, wanted to howl into the night. They felt so inadequate, but they were all I had, and they could never be enough.

Jaime nodded and I felt it then, the rush of hot tears that would lead to me balled up in a corner giving my best demonstration of a truly ugly cry. I fought the tears back, wiped the back of my hand across my eyes and stumbled away from Jaime, aware that somewhere ahead of me was the ladder and behind me was the woman who had known exactly how best to slay me. How she hadn't done it before was beyond me, but I guess that was one hell of a reason for her not talking to me for six months.

"I'm gonna go," I said, more for the need to say something than anything else, and I don't know if she even heard me. I didn't care at the time.

The numbness hit me hard once I was at the bottom of the ladder and I blinked into the night, feeling empty and dead inside.

Jeremy poked his head out and he might have said something to me as I stumbled away. I might have punched him, but don't quote me on that.

I don't know what he said. I don't know much of anything from that night.

I had finally hit true rock bottom. The place where I don't have the words to describe how I feel.

That's okay. I don't want to talk about it anymore anyway.

******** AUTHOR'S NOTE **********

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