Evan

It’s amazing how much junk you accumulate over ten years.

While sorting through my things, I came across all sorts of odds and ends. Old books I decided to let go of, clothing to donate to secondhand shops, and gifts from former girlfriends, like stuffed animals that had been forgotten in boxes I never bothered opening again after the breakups.

Every item reminded me of lessons I’d learned or difficulties I’d overcome. I was proud of a lot of it, but there were still things I felt ashamed of.

I came across a box of things belonging to my ex-girlfriend Sarah. She was the one I almost married.

She was twenty-nine, and I was twenty-seven at the time. She was beautiful, a lot of fun, great in bed, and had money. The problem was, she couldn’t hold her liquor, and she was constantly pressuring me to marry her.

On more than one occasion, I had to take her home when she was blackout drunk. Worse, when she drank, she became violent, both physically and emotionally. There were times she’d pick fights with random strangers at bars, and on two occasions, she picked fights with me in public.

There were also times when she’d do it in private. She’d physically hit me and verbally degrade me, and then we’d have some of the best sex of my life.

For a while, I took it.

I told myself, As long as nobody knows, it doesn’t matter.

I never fought back. I only defended myself. I could never bring myself to hit a woman, even in self-defense.

The first time she slapped me in public, I excused it, convincing myself she wouldn’t do it again.

The last time, I put her in a cab by herself after she pissed herself on the street. That was after she’d given me a black eye.

After that night, I never took her calls again.

She claimed she didn’t remember a thing, but when I sent her a photo of my shiner the following day, things only got worse.

She kept blowing up my phone, screaming and crying, telling our mutual friends that I’d wronged her and suggesting that I might have been cheating on her.

People who knew us, and knew about her drinking, didn’t automatically believe her. But they didn’t exactly check up on me, either. Many of them found it easier to avoid both of us altogether.

Eventually, after a month of me refusing to speak to her and dodging every attempt she made to contact me, she sent her best friend over to return a box of my belongings.

Enough of our mutual friends had stood up for me by then, finally convincing her to give up. Eventually, she accepted that there was no going back.

The sad part was, I’d actually been thinking about buying her a ring before that night. I’d even been considering putting down a deposit.

Afterward, I went back to the jeweler and canceled the ring.

She would never know.

I closed the box and let out a long sigh.

It had been ten years since I’d last looked inside it. I didn’t know why I’d never bothered to throw it out before now, but there was certainly no point in taking it with me when I moved.

It would go out with the trash tomorrow.

I needed a break. I didn’t want to think about any of it anymore, so I went and opened one of the bottles of red wine I’d been saving for a special occasion. I wouldn’t be able to take them with me when I moved, so I figured I might as well enjoy them now.

After pouring myself a healthy dose, I settled onto the couch and logged into my Message in a Bottle (MB) account.

I opened a few random bottles, but nothing really caught my interest. Eventually, I decided to check on the one favorite I was still following.

The next bottle I opened contained a picture of two playing cards: the two of hearts and the seven of clubs.

The description read:

“Sometimes the best thing you can do is fold your hand, especially when the odds are against you.”

I had to admit, that was a crappy hand.

It made me think about my breakup.

I still didn’t understand why, even after the first physical assault, I’d been willing to put up with it. Or why, when it happened again and again behind closed doors, I continued to take it.

I’d convinced myself that if she knew I loved her enough, she’d stop. That maybe it was just some kind of kink. That, at the very least, she wouldn’t humiliate me in public.

But I wasn’t willing to let her publicly destroy my dignity.

That relationship was my two-seven offsuit. A losing hand I’d held on to for far too long, when I should’ve folded before the flop.

I took another sip of wine and opened the next message.

This time, it was a photograph of two hands, one of them a woman’s, with a ring on her finger.

“I guess I’m getting married!”

I smiled.

I guess my friend here had managed to find love in a new place.

Good going! Congratulations!

I decided to open another message.

This one showed a Toyota parked in front of a building.

“New job, and not-so-new car, but it runs.”

It looked like their life was finally falling into place.

I hoped mine would, too.