implication

He showed up at the restaurant the other day. Roses in hand, and he requested table 16 – directly across the bar from my workstation. He sat facing me. That manipulative grin on his stupid face. I knew he had gotten back together with his ex; he made sure I knew, by texting me, and telling me…just to make it clear to me, that ‘we’ were over and not to try and ‘get back with him’. Sometimes I wonder how much of his bullshit he actually believes and how much he is just fucking with my head. It’s never been clear.

He was being a perfect gentleman & no one understood how I could have let someone like him go. From day 1 he’d been so noble, he didn’t even know me & yet he had offered me a ride home that night! How generous! And all the times he’d shown up to walk me to my car after closing? So thoughtful. No one would ever believe me if I told them that his chivalry was clandestine abuse – that we had never dated, that our “relationship” was forged with a knife at my neck and he’d only ever wanted to make sure I went home, because that’s where he could do whatever he wanted to me.

I tried to just do my job, but I’d occasionally look up and catch his gaze – I knew he was wanting a reaction from me; I mean, maybe not – maybe he brought his girlfriend there for a date and requested a table directly in front me for some other, benign reason. But. Either way, I truly did not care. It seemed absurd to me in the moment, that he could be so incredibly delusional as to think I would actually WANT to be with him. That it would have any effect whatsoever on me, to see him with her…& that’s when I realized that it wasn’t about him; it was about her…I was supposed to be jealous of HER. Because he didn’t abuse her, he loved her. I wouldn’t ever go as far as to assume that his relationship with her was/is in any way healthy, but I do know that he practically worships her. He had reminded me often of how I compared to her, how ‘lucky’ I was that he’d even be with someone like me when he could be with someone like her. And I think he wanted me to see the stark difference in how he treated her. And to know, and be jealous that I myself, was worthless in comparison. & that’s why he treated me like shit – it wasn’t him… it was me. He wanted to show me that it was my fault. that I deserved it. That I’d never do better because I was inherently less than.

I didn’t get the full implication at the time. But now, it’s as if he’s pacing back and forth in my brain, silently implying “are you ready now? are you ready to come back to me yet? are you ready to stop pretending that you deserve better?”