Fluidity

“I can’t believe you’re putting me out.”

“Your mom’s expecting you at three and the movers will be here tomorrow to take the rest of your stuff to the storage unit,” Chris said, talking to me like he didn’t hear a word I’d said.

“Are you listening to me?”

“The storage unit is paid for six months, but after that you’ll have to either get your stuff out or start paying for it yourself,” he continued, again ignoring my question. “I think they auction your stuff off if you don’t pay. I saw a television show about it. Some people hit the jackpot in those auctions and some just get a bunch of junk.”

I doubted anyone would be hitting the jackpot off of my belongings. I wasn’t even sure what was going into the storage unit. My collection of CDs, books, pictures, my bobble head collection, and other assorted goods probably. All the stuff my mother refused to let me put in her house where I’d be living (temporarily, I hoped) since my boyfriend of four years had kicked me out.

I looked at Chris. God, he was handsome. Tall and blue-eyed with blond hair graying around the temples. He was everything I thought I wanted in a man: patient, smart, attractive, older (forty-five to my thirty-five), athletic, good in bed. I still couldn’t believe he’d dumped me. We’d had a good thing (or so I thought) for four years, then he suddenly decided it was time to move on…

“This isn’t working for me anymore,” he’d told me a week earlier. Of course he’d waited until afterwe’d had sex to bring this up.

“What isn’t working?” I’d asked, figuring he was talking about something we’d done in bed.

“This…us. I want you to move out. I needyou to move out. I talked to your mom about it and she’s willing to take you back home for a while, just until you get on your feet. I know you don’t have the money for your own place and she and I both agreed it wouldn’t help to give you the money because we’ve enabled you enough already.”

Just hearing the word “enabled” made me sit up, turn on the light, and go a little crazy. I jumped out of bed.

“Enabled?” I asked as I pulled on a pair of shorts. “When have you enabled me?”

Chris sat up and sighed. “Scott, you know as well as I do that I’ve enabled you since the moment you moved in with me. I pay for everything. The mortgage, the bills, the groceries.”

“I buy groceries!”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine. You buy groceries on occasion, but I foot the majority of the bills around here.”

“You told me I didn’t have to pay for anything when we moved in together.”

“We didn’t move in together. This is mycondo. Ibought it. Youmoved in with me.”

“Oh, whatever. The point is, you said you’d take care of everything. I offered to help and you turned me down.”

“Scott, when we met, you were barely out of your twenties and you lived in a tiny studio apartment beside the L tracks in Rogers Park. You hardly made enough money to keep yourself afloat back then, so I wasn’t expecting you to come to my condo and pay half of my mortgage. Yes, I wanted to take care of you and I did, but I’m tired of doing it.”

“So this is about money? You want me to start paying rent?”

“It isn’t about money, it’s about you.” He sighed. “I hate that you lack the ambition to do better. You’ve been in the same low-paying job since we met and you’ve never expressed any interest in trying to get a better position that pays more. It’s not like you can’t do better for yourself. You can but, for whatever reason, youwon’t. Hell, you could have even gone back to school. I offered to pay for you to get an MBA or something and you just shot that down immediately. I can’t understand why you simply refuse to move forward, not just in your job, but in your life. I love you deeply, but being with you is making me miserable and I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t live with you anymore.”

“So you’ve arranged for me to move back home with my mother?”

He nodded. “I think it’s for the best.”

“The best for whom? For you? For my mother? God, I hate that you conspired with her behind my back. She likes you more than she likes me, her own goddamn child.”

“That’s not true and you know it. Look, Scott, I know you’re upset and I’m sorry, but breaking up is the best thing for both of us.”

“How is putting me out on the street good for both of us?”

“I’m not putting you out on the street. You’re going to your mother’s house in Evanston.”

I kept waiting for him to laugh and say that he was joking, but he didn’t. He was serious and I was furious. I folded my arms across my chest. “How long are you giving me to get out?”

“Everything’s arranged for you to go next Saturday.”

“Next Saturday? You’ve not even giving me thirty days?”

“You don’t need thirty days. A week is plenty of time to pack up what you’ll take to your mom’s. For the rest of your stuff, I hired movers and they’ll pack and take everything to the storage unit I rented for you. Your mom told me she doesn’t have room for all of your stuff at her house, so we agreed a storage unit would be the best option right now. It’s paid for the next six months, so don’t worry about the cost. It’s also in Skokie, close to your mom’s house, so you’ll be able to get to your stuff pretty fast if you need to. Oh, and your mail’s being forwarded to your mom’s starting next week.”

And, with that, Christopher Reynolds had closed the door on our relationship. That was also the last night we’d slept together. I’d spent my remaining nights in the guest bedroom alternating between planning ways to kill Chris and jerking off thinking about him…

Now, as I prepared to leave the condo, I gave him a final look. I’d thought Chris and I would grow old (well, older) together. I’d thought we’d had a solid relationship. We’d had no fidelity issues, we liked the same things, and we rarely even argued. But I’d had no idea that, underneath it all, Chris thought I was a loser. How could I have been so clueless about his feelings toward me? Yes, he’d made comments about my “low-paying” job with a local non-profit and he’d dropped hints that I should try to find work elsewhere, but he’d never dwelled on my career. And the school thing? I understood why Chris was gung ho on me going back to school. He had an MBA so he probably wanted us to be on the same page educationally. Yes, I had dismissed his offer to pay my tuition if I went back to school, but I just wasn’t interested in getting a graduate degree. Hell, it had taken me five years to get my BA, so the thought of going back for a master’s wasn’t appealing at all (even with the offer of paid tuition). It pained me to think that Chris had been so unhappy with me. How long had our relationship been making him miserable? Weeks? Months? Years? Had he everbeen happy with me?

* * * *

I pulled my Audi to a stop in front of my mother’s house and cut the engine. I needed a moment to compose myself before going inside to face her. I knew what she’d say when she saw me. She’d find some way to blame me for what happened because Chris (aka the “golden boy”) couldn’t possibly have been at fault. If our relationship had died, she’d assume I’dkilled it.