I asked. "To some girl he met on a shoot in LA." Dave said, his voice lowering. "He proposed to her last week." "Sarah, she's completely losing her mind.
She's telling everyone that he used her, that he was never serious about their cosmic connection. He just needed an into a few of her photographer circles in the city. He totally ghosted her the day after he proposed. He even blocked her." The irony was so sharp it almost made me laugh.
He had done to her what she had done to me, only far more callously. She had been so smug, so sure that she was leaving me for a better, more passionate life. And that soulmate had just used her as a stepping stone to his own ambitions, then discarded her without a second thought. She was a footnote, a rung on his ladder. Dave sighed, "It's a mess.
She's calling everyone she knows, trying to get his contact info, saying he owes her a huge apology. Her friends, even her family, they're starting to get tired of it. It's hard to have sympathy when she was so cruel to you." The quiet justice of it all was almost overwhelming. Sarah, who had believed herself to be so superior, so special, had been a backup plan all along.
Alex had never been in love with her. He'd just been in love with the idea of what she could do for him. He had used her to get ahead, and she was the last to know. I took a long drink of my beer. I didn't feel any satisfaction, no sense of victory, just a quiet confirmation of what I had always suspected.
The entire thing had been a lie, and the saddest part was she had believed it herself. "I don't need to hear about it anymore, man." I said to Dave, my voice calm. "It's not my problem." He nodded.
"I figured. Just thought you should know." I was already far away from all of it, but I didn't know how desperate she was until a few days later, when the calls started coming. From her. The texts, too.
It was a slow drip at first, a test of the waters. Then it became a flood. She wanted to talk. She needed me. She needed her rock, the one she had so casually thrown away.
And she was about to discover, with devastating finality, that her rock was no longer there to break her fall. The first text came a week later. A single, bland message that felt like a test. "Hey, hope you're doing well." I didn't respond.
A few days after that, another one. "I've been thinking about you a lot." I didn't respond to that one, either. The messages started to come more frequently, the tone shifting from casual to desperate. "I miss our talks.
I miss you. She started calling. I never picked up. Her calls would go to voicemail and she'd leave long, rambling messages. I know I messed up, Mark.
He wasn't who I thought he was. I made a huge mistake. Please, just talk to me. It was pathetic. The woman who was too good for my boring life was now begging for it back.