I don't remember any of it. I do remember sitting in my parked car in the lot outside my apartment, hands still on the steering wheel, staring at the dashboard. The radio was off. The engine was running. I sat there for a long time and my mind started pulling up memories like a playlist I hadn't asked to hear.
The weekend I skipped the guys trip to the mountains, the one they'd been planning for a year, because Jenna needed help moving out of that crappy apartment. I canceled my flight two days before departure. My friends were understanding, but I could hear the disappointment in their voices. I told myself it was worth it. She needed me.
The three nights in a row I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. running through mock interview questions with her. She was panicking, certain she wasn't good enough, and I kept telling her she was brilliant. Kept coaching her through every answer until she believed it. She got the job. She called me crying with happiness.
I was the first person she told. The concert tickets. I bought them in January for a show in July. Her favorite band. I set a calendar reminder so I wouldn't miss the pre-sale.
She talked about seeing them live since she was a teenager. When they walked on stage, she grabbed my hand so hard it hurt and tears streamed down her face and she turned to me and said, "This is the best night of my life." I did all of that. I gave all of that. And she pushed me out of a booth so another man could sit down.
I turned off the engine and went inside. The next hour was a strange, hollow blur. I sat on my couch and stared at the wall. My phone buzzed a few times, notifications I didn't check. Social media, probably.
Work emails. Nothing that mattered. At some point, I stood up and started rearranging my apartment. Not dramatically, just small things. I moved the throw pillows she'd picked out from the couch to the closet.
I took the framed photo of us from the bookshelf and slid it into a drawer. I threw away a half-empty bottle of her shampoo she'd left in my bathroom. I wasn't angry, not yet. I was something else, hollowed out like someone had scooped out my insides and left only quiet. That evening, around 7:00, there was a knock at my door.
I knew it was her before I looked through the peephole. I almost didn't answer, but some part of me wanted to see what she could possibly say. I opened the door. Jenna stood on my doorstep, arms crossed, jaw tight. She didn't look sad.
She didn't look apologetic. She looked annoyed. "You completely overreacted," she said. I just looked at her. "Mark was back in town," she continued, pushing past me into my apartment without being invited.
"I didn't want things to be awkward. You made it weird by storming out. Do you know how embarrassing that was for me?" I closed the door slowly. "Embarrassing for you?"
"Yes." She turned to face me, her voice rising. "You didn't even say anything. You just left like a child throwing a tantrum." I walked past her and sat down on the arm of the couch.
"You told me to move so another man could sit in my chair." "Oh my god." She rolled her eyes so hard it looked painful. "It wasn't like that. Mark and I have history, real history.