Blocked & Unbothered: My Seattle Glow-Up

My phone buzzed frantically against the tabletop. It was my boyfriend of ten years.

His voice came through the speaker, demanding to know why I hadn't groveled for his forgiveness yet.

I took a massive bite of deepdish pizza, thick cheese and hot grease dripping onto my fingers, and stared blankly ahead. My brain shortcircuited for a second. Oh, right.

A month ago, he unilaterally dumped me over his childhood best friend. Again.

If we followed the script of the last decade, I should be typing out a thousandword apology text right now.

But I had been so swamped with backtoback business trips and closing deals lately that I forgot he even existed.

Listening to his arrogant, entitled tone, the urge to even fake an apology completely vanished. Maybe it was time to dump him for good.

Chapter 1 The chatter around the table shifted to Alistair. Someone mentioned he was planning to propose to me.

Alistair just leaned back in his chair and smirked. "Do I even need to propose? Maeve wouldn't marry anyone else anyway." "Make sure Brielle is one of the bridesmaids.

She's been begging me about it for ages." The priority in that sentence was so skewed, I honestly couldn't tell if marrying me was the point, or if giving his childhood best friend a spot in my wedding party was the main event.

I took a slow sip of ice water and set the glass down. "I already have my bridesmaids picked out. My college roommates.

We made a pact years ago that we'd all stand up for each other." Alistair didn't even bother looking at me. "Then just add one more." "I can't. My bridal party is locked in at four.

Adding a fifth person would completely ruin the perfect symmetry of the aisle walk and the wedding photos." He shifted in his seat, his jaw tightening. "Then just find some random guy to balance it out.

Brielle has never been a bridesmaid before. Can't you just do this one little thing to make her happy?" The chatter around the table instantly died.

Our friend group just stared at their drinks. They were used to these sudden, senseless arguments. Nobody ever intervened because I was always the one who caved.

I would offer a pathetic apology, Alistair would give me the cold shoulder for two days to prove a point, and then we'd make up.

Nobody wanted to play the clown in our toxic little circus. But this time, my spine stiffened. "No.

It's my wedding, and I'm making the calls." Alistair pushed his chair back and closed the distance between us.

He leaned down, his voice dropping. "And if I insist?" I met his gaze, my jaw set. I didn't say a word, but the silence gave him his answer.

His expression tightened into an ugly sneer. "Then we're done. Don't bother calling me, Maeve." He turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him.

The rest of the group sat frozen in the suffocating silence. I forced a tight smile and tried to smooth things over.

A few of them chuckled nervously. "Maeve's got this under control. She knows exactly how to handle Alistair. Guys are just like that.

Go sweettalk him a bit and it'll all blow over." "Don't spoil him too much, Maeve," another chimed in. "The more you let them get away with, the worse they get.

You've always been too soft on him." "Honestly, the astrological alignment for your original wedding date was totally off anyway," one of the girls offered, swirling her cocktail. "I'll get my personal astrologer to pull your birth charts.

She's insanely accurate with tarot and natal charts. Any date she picks is guaranteed to dodge Mercury retrograde." I offered a polite, hollow smile and kept my mouth shut.

I left the restaurant and wandered down the sidewalks, letting the cold night air clear my head. My mind played a highlight reel of my tenyear history with Alistair.

The shared glances in high school hallways. Making it official freshman year of college. Surviving the grueling longdistance phase.

Pushing through the messy, exhausting years of moving in together and figuring out how to share a life.

We hit rock bottom at every single milestone, and every single time, I was the one who dragged us back from the edge. I asked myself the same question constantly.

Did loving someone require shrinking yourself down to nothing? Wasn't a relationship supposed to be about mutual compromise? About having each other's backs?

But whenever I finally built up the nerve to walk away, that nagging voice in the back of my head would whisper the same toxic question.

If you give up now, doesn't that make the last decade of your life a complete and total joke? So I kept my head down.

I gritted my teeth and held onto the pathetic hope that if I just gave a little more, he would finally notice. That maybe, eventually, we would actually make it to the finish line.

Chapter 2 I walked past the river—the one I used to call the River of Tears.

It wasn't far from campus, and it had witnessed every pathetic breakdown I'd had since my first heartbreak. But tonight, the air felt biting.

Before I could even start wallowing in my own misery, goosebumps prickled my skin. I pulled my coat tight around me. Forget it. I'll go be miserable at home.

As I turned the corner, I saw the drivethru. It was funny, really—I'd spent half my life at this place.

I remembered one time, after a particularly nasty fight with Alistair, I'd stormed in and ordered a massive familysized bucket of fried chicken and double cheese fries.

I'd been so choked up with rage that I couldn't even force down a single bite. Their frying game was better than ever.

The scent of seasoned flour and hot oil hit me like a drug, pulling me out of my funk.

I didn't dare order too much this time, terrified of a repeat performance, but after polishing off half a box of nuggets, I realized I still had room for fries.

My mouth was busy, my stomach was full, and suddenly, that hollow ache in my chest didn't feel so bottomless. I hesitated at the front door.

We'd lived together for so long that every square inch of this tiny apartment was stained with the ghost of our life together.

But when I pushed the door open, I didn't see memories.

I saw an overflowing trash can no one had bothered to empty, empty soda bottles cluttering the coffee table, and shoes kicked off wherever he'd felt like dropping them.

The irritation burning in my chest was finally starting to drown out the grief. The anger scorched the tears right out of my eyes.

Once I'd scrubbed the apartment until it shone, I pulled out my phone. I needed to hide our old posts—I didn't have the stomach to stumble across them later and spiral.

Instead, a notification from Zara caught my eye. She'd tagged me in the group chat with a list of revisions for my latest proposal.

By the time I finished the work and closed my laptop, the sky was already bleeding into a pale, milky dawn.

I realized with a start that the first day of my breakup had just… passed. Effortlessly. I went through every app, methodically purging his presence from my life.

Deleted the photos. Muted the mutuals. Then, I hit the final button. Blocked. Alistair never came back.

I knew exactly what he was doing—waiting for me to crawl back and beg for forgiveness. I thought I would.

It was a habit by now, and when you're that deep in love, dignity feels like a fair price to pay. But every time I reached for my phone, something more important got in the way.

A new brief, a client call, a deadline. Before I knew it, nine days had slipped by without a single word to him.

I'd done the one thing I thought was impossible, and surprisingly, I wasn't dying inside.

At the Monday morning meeting, the department head announced a major client account that required someone to relocate for at least a year and a half.

I didn't even blink before my hand shot into the air.

He glanced at me, surprised. "We're prioritizing singles for this one," he said. "I am single." The conference room exploded into laughter.

They all knew the legend of Alistair and Maeve—the endless cycle of drama and pathetic reconciliations. But today, the joke was on him.

Chapter 3 The department head asked around the room, but no one else wanted the gig.

Relocating away from corporate headquarters for a year and a half was essentially career suicide—out of sight, out of mind.

It was a terrible move for anyone looking to climb the ladder. But for me? It was the perfect escape hatch.

Not only did it put a massive physical distance between me and Alistair, giving me the breathing room I desperately needed to clear my head, but the client was based in Seattle.

I had always wanted to live there. Alistair, of course, had flatout refused. He was comfortable here, and heaven forbid he ever leave his comfort zone.

He wouldn't even agree to a weekend trip to the Pacific Northwest. Our friends used to joke that he was terrified I'd fall in love with the city and never come back.

I used to just force a tight smile at that. In the end, the department head handed the relocation to me.

Before I left, he pulled me aside. "Don't leave me hanging on this, Maeve," he warned. "Whatever is going on with your boyfriend, I need you locked in for the next eighteen months.

No bailing." I gave him a sharp salute. "Mission accomplished, boss." My first few weeks in Seattle were a blur of caffeine and spreadsheets.

I pulled fourteenhour days for two straight weeks, living out of a suitcase in the corporatesponsored hotel because I didn't even have time to apartment hunt.

It wasn't until my third weekend that I finally carved out an afternoon to explore.

The city was exactly what I'd seen on Instagram and travel blogs, but breathing in the crisp, salttinged air and seeing the skyline in person hit different. Yeah.

I definitely made the right call moving here. When my phone lit up with my mother's contact photo later that afternoon, I actually flinched.

It had been over a year since our last screaming match. The aggressive push for me to settle down had started the second I hit twentyfive.

When I hit twentyeight with no ring to show for it, she escalated. She had actually snooped through my phone, pulled Alistair's number, and ambushed him.

I could only imagine the absolute poison she'd spewed at him. He iced me out for a solid month after that phone call.

My mother has this lovely, melodic voice, which makes the vicious things she says somehow even more jarring. "Are you seriously going to drag this out until you're thirty?" she snapped over the line. "The women in our family have kids playing Little League by your age.

You're a complete freak of nature." "Guess I'm just breaking the mold, Mom." "I don't have time for your sarcasm," she huffed. "Your sister saw your social media.

You and that Alistair kid finally called it quits?" "Real this time? Usually you two are back together in a week, but it's been dead silent.

Tell me you actually cut the cord." I pinched the bridge of my nose, an instant headache blooming behind my eyes. "Get to the point, Mom.

I have a mountain of work to do." "God, you have the exact same rotten attitude as your father.

No wonder you two can't even be in the same room." "I'm hanging up." "Wait, wait!" she shrieked hastily. "I just wanted to tell you, if you're free this weekend, your aunt set you up on a blind date.

You need to go meet him. He works in the same city as you." "Yeah, about that. We're definitely not in the same city anymore.

Forgot to mention, I moved." Chapter 4 My mother's voice instantly spiked in volume. "Why on earth would you just up and change jobs for no reason?

You've been like this since you were a kid, always so incredibly stubborn and headstrong!" I didn't have the energy to unpack all of that. "Is this guy my aunt's client or her boss?

Or someone she needs a favor from? Because there's no other reason she'd be pushing this hard." The booming confidence vanished from her voice.

She stammered, "I mean, technically he's your cousin's boss's son. But his profile is incredible!

Do you really think your aunt would try to sabotage you?" I genuinely didn't know how she could say that with a straight face.

If she had been standing in front of me, I would have examined her closely to see if she even possessed the capacity to blush. "Are you absolutely sure about that, Mom?" "Do you have to be so incredibly toxic about everything?" she snapped back. "So what if that guy your aunt set you up with last year got a little handsy with you?" "She cried and apologized to you!

She obviously didn't know about his background, otherwise why would she have set you up?" I didn't even bother arguing.

If she didn't know his background, why forcefully arrange a blind date in the first place? My own fleshandblood aunt set me up with a stalker who literally had an ankle monitor.

And after I explicitly rejected his advances multiple times, she handed over my apartment's security code and my exact address to him.

If Alistair hadn't shown up when he did that night, I don't even want to think about what would have happened in that pitchblack stairwell.

I found out later that the guy was the nephew of one of my aunt's major clients. Without doing a shred of vetting, she just asked my mother for a photo of me and sent it over.

The second the guy showed interest, she practically giftwrapped my location for him. She orchestrated the entire thing without my knowledge.

When I wanted to go to the police afterward, my aunt flatout told me she absolutely would not testify or back up my story, because she couldn't afford to offend her client.

The whole thing was swept under the rug. And now, here we were again.

A brand new year, the exact same twisted game. "Tell my aunt to stop using me as a bargaining chip for her networking.

Or else when I come home for the holidays, I'm going to cause a scene so massive she'll think I belong in an asylum." "You are so unbelievably ungrateful!" The line went dead.

The sudden silence in the room was intoxicating. I had never realized how utterly beautiful a quiet environment could be.

Channeling that energy, I tore through the revisions on a proposal, finalized it, and dropped it into the client group chat.

A barrage of thumbsup and applause emojis flooded the screen, and I couldn't help but feel a rush of validation.

I opened my social media and posted a quick update. [ Crushing it today.

In my element. ] I've always had a decent circle of friends, but the notification icon immediately started blowing up way more than usual.

The comments rolled in. [ Maeve is in her bossbabe era! I've been trying to drag you out for a week, you've just been hiding at home working? ] [ Still working?

Girl, your territory is getting invaded, don't you know? ] [ Why haven't you deleted that breakup post yet? Don't tell me you two still haven't made up?

Did you not plan a good enough surprise apology this time?

You're totally ignoring our expert advice. ] I went down the list, replying methodically. [ I'm out of town on a business trip.

Drinks when I'm back. ] [ My heart is a fortress, and right now, the gates are locked.

Zero occupants. ] [ We haven't made up. ] The second I hit send on the last comment, my phone buzzed with an incoming call. It was the girlfriend of one of Alistair's close friends.

We used to grab dinner together all the time. Chapter 5