He Said Leave. So I Did.

Him: [We're done!] Him: [Be gone before I get back!] Eight years. Eight years of him throwing me out of the apartment every time he got mad.

This time it was because I worked late and didn't get to the litter box. Then the door slammed.

The comments were already going. [go after him!! one nice word and he comes right back, he always does] They always say that. Every other time, I went after him.

This time I wiped my face and typed back: [Okay.] Chapter 1 I put the phone down, wiped my face again, and went to pull my suitcase out of the closet. [oh he's SO prickly, he wants to come back and make up with her so bad rn but his mouth is nasty, why would he say we're done, is this the abandonment issues talking??] [yes!!! his parents split when he was little and BOTH remarried fast, he got left behind by both of them, OP knows all this!! why is she actually packing?? don't do this, he loves you so much, what is he supposed to do without you] [that trash mouth of his!! nothing he says when he's angry counts!! open that door and he'll come running back wagging his tail, OP please stop packing, what happens to him if you leave??] [nobody on this earth loves you more than that man. high school together, four years of college together, you finally graduated and you're supposed to get married. don't do this. you are his whole life. what happens to him? what happens to Jellybean??] I started packing and quit reading them.

I've lost count of how many times we've done this. Every time he says we're done, the next sentence is always the same. Get out.

And every time we make up, he curls into me and does the voice, the small one, and tells me he didn't mean it. He never means it. That's the deal.

The first time Nolan put me out, I didn't know what to do with myself.

We were leaving on a trip the next morning, so I'd stayed late killing myself to hand off every file, so the whole week would be clean. That was the whole point.

Clear the desk, then go be happy for a week. To him that meant the trip didn't matter to me. He said it twice. Why else would I be walking in at eleven at night.

He didn't hear the part where I hadn't eaten. He didn't hear any of it. He put the suitcase in my arms and shut the door in my face.

I stood in the hallway explaining myself to a closed door. It was winter, and he'd put me out without my coat.

I stood on that landing shaking, nothing in my stomach since lunch, for half the night. He never came out. Not once.

My blood sugar bottomed out and I went down, and a neighbor coming home found me on the floor and banged on the door until Nolan opened it.

If she hadn't come by, I don't know what would have happened. I stood out there most of the night. And that strip of light under the door stayed on the whole time.

Chapter 2 That one scared him half to death. When I came around he swore up and down, over and over, until I said okay just to make him stop. "Junie.

I love you so much." "When I'm angry and I say things, you can't take them seriously. Promise me you won't." "You know I've got issues. That's all it is.

Give me enough that I feel safe and I'll never be like this again." I believed him.

So after that, every fight ended with get out, and every time I told myself it was just the anger talking. He's prickly. He's got abandonment issues.

I knew all of it, I could recite all of it. And I built my entire life around it. But I'm tired. Eight years. Eight years of me apologizing first.

Eight years of getting put out of my own home every time he lost his temper. I'm just. Tired. The packing didn't take long. I made myself a cup of instant ramen.

Something tugged at my ankle. Jellybean. The second I crouched down she was up my arm and onto my shoulder. Jellybean came from a girl in Nolan's program.

She kept her about two weeks and got bored. Nolan brought her home, and from that day the cat was my job. Litter, baths, shots, dewormer, the carrier, the vet, the whole thing.

Mine. Any time I was late with any of it, he'd look at me with that flat face. "I only brought her home because you wanted her. You know that." "June.

Since when are you this irresponsible?" And this time, the reason he blew up and said we're done was the litter box. I hadn't scooped it and the apartment smelled.

I was eating when I opened my phone and saw that the girl from his program had posted. [poor homeless boy :( guess I'll take him in, I'm so generous] The picture was half of Nolan's face at a bar, holding a glass. [aw he's wrecked. look at him. he's been drunk for hours and he hasn't put his phone down once. he's thinking about OP the whole time!!] [don't be mad!! he only let her come out to make you jealous, he doesn't like that girl at all, she's a prop] [literally he's going to burn a hole through that screen. one text from you and he turns back into a puppy, watch] I didn't get to the end of the comments.

A video came in from a number I didn't know. In it, Nolan has his eyes closed and his head down against a woman's chest.

She asks him, "So if you came and slept at my place tonight, would she dump you?" He makes a sound in his throat, almost a laugh. "Give her two days of cold and she'd carry me home on her back." The woman is laughing so hard the camera shakes. "So she's a doormat?

Like, the kind you can't even get rid of?" I stopped breathing. And then I heard him say, low, "Mm." That's where it ends.

I sat there and looked at the ramen and I could not put another bite in my mouth. So that's what it was. All the aching I did for him.

All the ways I made myself smaller, one inch at a time, because I thought I was loving him. To him and to everyone around him, it was just this.

A thing you can call over and send away. A doormat. I looked at the cup. The noodles had gone cold and a film of grease had set on top.

I picked it up and put the whole thing in the trash. Eight years, and what's left of it fits in one small suitcase. "Mrow.

Mrow…" Chapter 3 Jellybean had my pant leg in her teeth and wouldn't let go. I stood there for a second. I'd been the one taking care of her for a year.

He wasn't going to start now. So I took her with me. It was two in the morning by the time I checked into a hotel. First thing the next day I was on my phone looking at listings.

Inside an hour I'd found a furnished sublet near the office. Month to month, movein that day, deposit over Venmo. Small, but it cut nearly an hour off my commute each way.

We didn't live over there when we first graduated. But Nolan can't get up in the morning. You could set off a car alarm next to his head. He got written up twice for coming in late.

So I offered to move us across town, near his office. I was the kind of person then who thought love could outmuscle anything.

If it was easier for him, an hour on the train twice a day was nothing. Then his company took off and he bought a place, also near his office. Two, three years in that apartment.

Now that I've moved out, I get all those hours back. I was in the new place by that night. "June, why are you still here?

You're going to miss the last train." Somebody stopped by my desk on their way out. I looked at what was left in my queue and shook my head. "I moved. I'm close now.

I'll finish this first." "Wait. June. You finally moved?" Everyone on that floor had thought for years that two hours a day on a train was a stupid way to live.

Inconvenient and a waste of a life, in that order. When they heard I was close now, they dragged me out for late food after. I got home and went down like a dropped coat.

The next evening, right after work, one of Nolan's friends texted me. Him: [hey, you two fighting? he's at my place wrecked] I sat with that for a second. Me: [Not fighting.

We broke up.] He called me right after, and I could hear the lecture in his voice before he even got going. "Okay, see, this is on you. You know how he is. Come on.

How many times has he said that over the years? Was he ever serious once?" "You used to feel for him. Why are you digging in this time?" "I'm telling you as a friend.

Come over, say two nice things to him, and he'll be over it and going home with you tonight." "And if you don't come? If he actually means it this time?

Then you'll have nowhere to go cry about it." That's the funny part. After all these years, even the people around Nolan take it as a given that I can't leave him.

He hung up before I could say anything. Then an address came through. I blocked him. Nolan's friends were never really my friends.

We were polite at parties and that was the shape of it.

And if Nolan and I are done, his people go with him. [wait is OP actually angry?? he had his friend call her, that's him building her a bridge, no couple stays mad overnight] [that's just how he is, he's prickly, he loves her so much it's stupid, he gave up his firstchoice school to go where she went!! ugh she's really hurt this time. he's thrown up three times already, he's going to wreck his stomach] Chapter 4 [ok is it just me or is he unbelievably highmaintenance? when a girl does this it's drama, when a guy does it it's "he's prickly, he's got abandonment issues"? this is exhausting too, actually] I read the last one and laughed at my own screen, without much in it.

She's not wrong. Nolan is highmaintenance drama. That's the whole word for it. It wasn't so bad at the beginning.

It got worse after he gave up his firstchoice school for me, and it kept getting worse every year after that.

Any fight where I didn't come running fast enough, the phone would ring. Do you know what he gave up for you. He didn't go to the school he wanted, for you.

And this is how you treat him. Can you live with yourself. Here's the thing nobody wants to hear. When we were doing college applications, I told him, more than once.

I don't mind longdistance. A thousand miles, two thousand, whatever. He'd still be the most important person in my life. I said it to his face.

And he went and applied to the exact same school anyway. When I saw his list I asked him again, and then again. Are you sure. Are you not changing it.

Is this actually where you want to go. He wouldn't answer me. And the day after the application deadline he got so drunk he couldn't stand. I found out from a phone call.

One of his friends telling me I'd gone too far, that I'd forced him to apply where I applied, and that was how I learned his first choice had never been State, the school we ended up at.

But I was young and I was moved by it. I went and got him and took him home while he was still yelling at the sky.

And for eight years, every time he's unhappy, every time he acts out, the people around him line up to tell me what he sacrificed. After a while you stop being able to hear it.

Like the school was a loan, and I signed for it, and I'd be paying it back for the rest of my life. "June.

Come on, we're getting food." We'd run late and nobody had ordered anything. I used to skip these. I lived too far out and I was always watching the clock for the last train.

Now that they know I'm around the corner, my name gets called with everyone else's. There was nothing waiting for me at home, so I said yes.

Five or six of us went to the place everyone was posting about, and after that somebody wanted a bar. We'd barely sat down when I noticed how loud the next table was.

I turned to look without thinking about it, and it was Nolan. Nolan and all of his friends.

And of course Sabrina, the girl from his program, the one who's never more than a step behind him. "Nolan! A bet's a bet! Kiss somebody in this bar. Anybody.

Go!" Truth or dare, apparently. My eyes went across them and landed on him by accident. I didn't hold it. I looked away. He seemed to stall out for a second.

Then, slow and easy, he said, "Fine." The table came apart. Somebody actually cheered. "Look at him being a good sport! Who's it going to be?

Who?" Somebody else was already laughing. "We're all guys here, obviously he's picking Sabrina.

What, is he going to kiss you?" "Oh my God, you're all terrible!" Sabrina put both hands over her face. "Okay, Nolan. A bet's a bet.

Pick somebody and kiss them right now, or I'm doing it myself." Chapter 5 "Oh, Nolan's about to lose his virtue! Get him!" The next table was getting louder by the second.

The comments piled in. [OP what are you DOING, can't you see he's been looking at you this whole time?? he does not want to kiss anybody, his head is full of you right now] [he still hasn't been home!! he doesn't even know you moved out, he's sitting there waiting for you to fold. don't be stubborn right now, what if he digs his heels in and actually kisses her??] [he's quiet because he's waiting on your reaction. that's ALL. look at him. you don't even have to walk over, one look and he'll come to you like a good boy and he will not glance at another person, I promise] I picked up my glass and drank.

Setting it down, my hand went wide and the glass went over on the table. "June! You okay? What happened?" Somebody waved down a server to wipe it up.

That was enough noise to turn heads at the next table. The whole loud group of them went quiet at once. A lot of faces came around toward me.

And Sabrina, the girl from his program, stood straight up and came over and planted herself in front of me. "June. He came out with his friends for one night.

You don't have to follow him this closely, do you