Chrissy’s Birthday
After the Vegas trip, things went back to normal. Normal was not necessarily a good thing. If Chrissy had a weekday off I would let her drive me to work and use the Jeep as long as she picked me up at 5:00PM. Usually, she would hang out with Zak. And usually, she would be late picking me up from work. Zak didn’t drive. He didn’t work. It was so obvious they were seeing each other more than in a professional way and it bothered me that she was stringing that “Doogie” guy along. He had to know something was going on because she used to be chatting with him online all the time or on the phone with him and that seemed to stop overnight.
Anyway, Chrissy’s birthday was coming up and falling on a Saturday. We discussed it and we were going to host some sort of social gathering for it. I had gotten to meet some of her friend’s from school and they were kind enough to invite me to a Super Bowl party and other events in the past. We hadn’t seen them in a while. Pretty much since Chrissy met Zak, actually. So for weeks I had asked Chrissy if she invited them to a birthday gathering. We had actually decided a night of ‘Laser Tag.’ As it got closer and closer, I asked and she kept putting it off. Finally the day before her birthday, her last chance to ask her classmates came and she came back from classes and said they couldn’t make it. I was pissed, but she told me not to worry. I knew she had no intentions of asking anyone. Deep down I knew she wanted to drop all plans and be with Zak. Only if she was honest…
That night she said that for her birthday, a group of us will go to ‘Dave & Buster’s’ . A group of us meant her and Zak and a girl Zak knew that could get me out of their hair. We picked up Zak and then went north and picked up this girl. She had curly red hair and rather cute. Her name was Lori and I didn’t like her. It wasn’t so much her, but we were being ‘set up’ and it was obvious. I said hello and I teased her as we tried to find ‘Dave & Buster’s. Lori knew that we had to turn left at the 7-11 but it seemed as if there was a 7-11 every three or four blocks, so I joked that it was useless information. I was rather rude and I did not make a good first impression on her.
The entire evening, I had conflicting emotions. I was furious with Chrissy. I didn’t care for Zak, mostly because I felt he knew she had a boyfriend, but was selfish and didn’t care. I didn’t want to like Lori, but taking my frustration out on her made me feel guilty. So each time I ran off and avoided Lori and the others, I would also come back and give Lori a stuffed animal I won in one of those ‘claw machine’ games or I’d randomly buy her a drink. By the end of the night, we dropped her off and she was pretty sure she’d never see me again.
That night I let Chrissy have it. I was done paying for things because she had no cash, I was pissed that she absolutely blew off asking people to hang out for her birthday just to hang out with Zak without breaking it off with ‘Doogie’. I was just done.
Something I said must have struck a chord because the next day she told me she called ‘Doogie’ and broke it off, which was a lot different than the usual, “well, I think I should tell him in person” crap I got from her when she finally admitted her and Zak had a ‘thing’. Yes, in person is more respectful, but she was never going to afford a plane ticket anytime soon to see him. Or if she was going to let him fly out to Colorado to dump him, when would she do it? When he first arrived so he is stuck in Colorado the entire weekend alone while she sucked face with Zak, because doing it at end of the weekend is just as awkward.