How'd I Get To Be The Bad Guy?

I am officially pissed.

I didn't want to be. I tried not to be. I have been, in my own biased opinion, the very picture of the civilized dumpee. Right on up until Saturday. And, now that it's Monday, I'm still seething.

As I have somewhat settled in the new nest, I realized there were several things I needed immediately that I had left behind. We, X and I, had agreed I could leave a few things there until we both had time to go through them together and that there were some other things that weren't immediately essential and could be retrieved another day. So, I called him Friday to ask if he had some time this weekend so I could come and pick up some things.

Of course, he had several commitments going, but thought he'd be able to make a short period of time available. Whatever, I thought but didn't say. He really, really hates when I say that in that particular way. No need to antagonize the man.

Late Saturday afternoon, he calls. He has just about a half hour and then he has to be somewhere. He's cagey enough about where "somewhere" is that I know he's meeting that whore bitch who pretended to be my friend, but turned out to be stabbing me in my back. The one he had on the boat before I even moved out. Again I think, whatever. No need to be hostile about it.

So, over to his house I go. He meets me outside and we greet each other nicely, but with a lot of distance. We go in and the first thing I notice is that he has a bunch of my stuff piled on the floor in the guest bedroom. Hmmm. He asks what I had to get because he had to shower and leave soon. I said that there were a few essentials, like my sewing box, my address book, some bills I'd forgotten to take, my coats...things like that. I said I knew I still had a lot of clothes, my luggage, and other things, but that I could get those another day when he had more time.

I walked around the house, getting what I needed, with him following me like a shadow. I gave him several looks, as if to say, "Do you have a problem?" But I didn't say it. Like I said, I am Ms. Nicey Nice Nice.

After several circuits of the house, I sat down in the living room for minute to think. X took that break as an opportunity to fill a can of water for the flowers on the deck. I noticed a card on on the coffee table and leaned over to read the signature. Fuck me! It's signed, "Love, Your Nurse." I couldn't read the rest of it without picking it up, but I can just imagine. Bitch! I want to say something smart about the card, but I decide that I am a much better person than that.

Then he comes back into the living room, looks at me strangely, and says he just has to get something off his chest. He says he feels like my sister's boyfriend must have felt when all four sisters (Ah! The ever efficient Sisters From Hell!) moved her out of his place and left it empty. He says he thought it was just vindictive. I am, to say the least, stunned. I look around and see the tables in the living room, the custom-made draperies in the living room and bedroom, the newly redecorated bedroom, the crystal, the china, the TV...all things I'd paid for, but left for him. He goes on with his grievances: how he helped me pay for some expensive dental work, how he helped pay for my master's degree, how he paid for all of our vacations. Meanwhile, I'm thinking that he never had to pay a utility bill, to buy any groceries, or to cover the cost of the cleaning lady. I'm just about speechless when he starts ranting about the garbage bags and plastic wrap. This was too much. I told him to take a look around and notice he still had anything, let alone garbage bags and plastic wrap. Which, by the way, he still had if he would take the time to haul them off the boat. Grrrrrrrr!

I will not justify anything I took. I don't have to. I didn't take half of what I could have. I will not get into this pissing match. But his attitude, unbelievable as I find it, seems to be that I should have just disappeared with nothing but the clothes on my back. And maybe not even those. He appears to have thought that there should have been no disruption or change in his comfort level or environment. And because that is not what happened, I have become the bad guy.

Nevertheless, I keep my astonishment to myself. I'm getting very pissed off, so I leave before I completely lose my temper. As I enter my apartment, my sister calls. I tell her this whole story and she says she knows about his little rants about what I took. How? Apparently, he has been going around telling a lot of people, including my own brother-in-law, how I was so vindictive as to take the garbage bags. This? After I have been so protective of him? After I pleaded with some people not to blame him, not to confront him, not to desert him as a friend? I am now officially angry. I will not be made out to be the avenging bitch he wants me to be. I may feel like it, but I'm smarter than that. I'll be the low-key bitch who wins this one. Because I will refuse to speak badly of him. People will hear him, know that I didn't do what he claims I did, know that it was him who ended our relationship, and wonder what kind of nutcase he is that he feels the need to trash me now. And I will win his little PR war.

I also now feel that some of our bets are off. I will no longer protect him from my friends and family who want to confront him. I will no longer refuse to name who it is when his co-workers ask if there is another woman. If he wants to fuck around with a co-worker and risk looking unprofessional, then I don't have to shield him from that risk. And the next time Mo wants to go out for a drink, we're going to the Corner Grill. Together. And leaving together. And I don't care who sees us. It will all be done without malice, but also with no concern for X or his feelings. He is not the person I thought he was. And I am much stronger than I thought I was.

I think I needed this anger. So I could see more clearly.