I knew that Tye was the guy for me; I was sure that Tye was the love of my life. We’d met through friends about two years earlier, when I’d first become a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, and we’d started dating about four months after that. Even though he couldn’t commit to a dinner date, we hung out often. I saw him almost every night after cheerleading practice. He invited me to the Entourage party at his house every Sunday night, which usually included about a half dozen of his friends hanging out to watch the show. And I often met up with him and his buddies wherever they were hanging out; typically a bar or a restaurant.
My life was intertwined with his for a year. During that time, I’d done that thing that girls do: Fallen for him . . . even though he had not only NOT encouraged it, he had actively discouraged it. And I’d fallen harder than I had ever fallen before. As far as I was concerned, Tye and I had just completely clicked. Everyone always talks about a “spark,” and we definitely had that. Plus, he was cute and funny, and he cared about building a career and starting a family, all of which made him seem like the perfect catch.
One of the main problems in my relationship with Tye was communication . . . we didn’t really have any. Not about serious topics like our relationship, at least. I figured I knew him well enough to be clear that if I told him how I felt, I’d scare him off. So, I just never said anything. Because I’d been too afraid to tell him how I felt, I’d decided to show him. This meant going to Starbucks and leaving coffee and a muffin for him at his condo EVERY morning before work. And baking him cookies in the shapes of the teams that played the Dallas Cowboys, so he could eat them while he was watching the games on Sunday with his buddies. And picking up Chick-fil-A or pizza for him and the guys before away games, which I had off because the cheerleaders didn’t travel with the team, and dropping off the food at his place. And sending him endless texts, and jokes, and emails, just to let him know I was thinking about him. (Oh gosh . . . I’m CRINGING right now, remembering how I used to behave . . . !)
Yes, I made sure that Tye knew that I liked him, all right.
The fact that none of this had caused him to want to be with me didn’t discourage me. I was convinced that he was in love with me. He just didn’t know it yet, not really. All I had to do was stick around until he realized his feelings for me . . . and I was willing to do that. But maybe he didn’t really know how I felt. I mean, I had never told him. I had just assumed he knew because of all the ways I showed him. So . . . maybe . . . all I had to do was tell him how I felt.
While I sat on Tye’s bed, waiting for him to come home, I passed the time by going over my ultimatum speech again, and again. It wasn’t even an option in my mind that he might tell me that he didn’t love me, and that he wanted to end the relationship. I really thought this “talk” would fix everything that was wrong with our relationship. He probably didn’t know that I liked to be taken on dates (I mean . . . they are a little overrated), or wanted to be sent flowers, or sweet messages, or just told that I was appreciated, or loved even.
After waiting for about two hours, Tye finally got home and came into his bedroom. He was surprised to see me, but he didn’t make a big deal out of it. He sat down next to me on the bed.
I took a deep breath. And, just like that, it all came spilling out of me. I was pretty heated at this point, just because I’d had two hours to stir up my feelings and make myself angrier.
“Listen, we’ve been dating a year, and I need to know where we’re going,” I said. “I feel like I put so much effort into you and into this relationship, and I feel like I get nothing back! I care about you. I care about you a lot. I love you!”
Now, we had never said the big “L” word before . . . heck, we’d never really said the “like” word before. And here I was, skating on very thin ice. But I couldn’t help it.
It’s how I feel . . . he needs to know!
He didn’t say anything, not a single word. I think he was dumbfounded. Poor guy. I don’t blame him. I think he thought my head was about to start spinning.
So, rational as I was, I kept talking. Well, it was actually more like yelling. There’s nothing worse than not getting an answer of any kind, and the longer he stayed quiet, the angrier, and angrier, I became. I’ve never been a violent person, but I could have slapped him right then, just to get him to say something . . . anything. I wanted to do it, if only to shock him and get a rise out of him, but obviously, I didn’t.
I doubled the force of my words and continued my tirade. Did I mention that I’m not the best communicator? Back then, I just might have been the WORST communicator. This is how I thought a conversation about feelings should go!
I think the reason that everything came out of me as anger was that I had been feeling all of this for so long, and wanting something from him so badly, and getting no response when I finally expressed my needs, it just pushed me over the edge.
“I need to know how you feel about me!” I said. “Because I don’t know if I’m wasting my time. I know I’m only twenty-four, but I’m not the dating type, I’m the relationship type. If that’s not what you want, you need to tell me now. I feel like I’m not high on your priority list at all! I feel like your work, your workouts, and your friends rank way higher on the list than I do! I do everything I can for you, try to make you happy, and I feel like you give me nothing!”
Sound familiar to any of you?
And that’s just what I got from him right then, too: Nothing.
After all that I’d said, I got zero reaction from him. His silence just made me more heated and more irrational. Now, when I say Tye said nothing, I literally mean that he said nothing. I’m not sure why. Maybe he really was dumbfounded. This was a side of me that he had never seen before. How could he possibly know how to react? Maybe he was internalizing everything that I was saying, since he had never really heard me talk like this before. I did know, though, that his silence was not meant to be mean or to hurt me. Tye had repeatedly said throughout the course of our relationship that he just wasn’t ready for me. Like so many other twenty-six-year-old males, he had a lot on his plate, and looking for a serious girlfriend was not his priority. I knew this.
But after dating for nearly a year, having so many amazing times together, where we laughed and had so much fun—meeting each other’s families, meeting each other’s friends (well, I met HIS friends, he couldn’t be bothered to meet mine)—I needed to know where the relationship was going, how he felt about me, why I was never a priority, and what I could do to make him want to be with me.
I know, I know, it sounds like I wanted him to give me a PowerPoint presentation on why our relationship wasn’t working, or something equally unlikely, but, really, I just wanted something from him; even the smallest explanation about what he was thinking—or, rather, feeling—about me. I wanted him to stand up for us, and if he couldn’t, I wanted him to apologize for letting me down, and for letting US down. Or even just to hear him admit that he knew he took me for granted, and that he was sorry.
But, still, I got NOTHING.
Unbelievable.
His face was blank, and he remained silent. After all of that, I was so upset and desperate that none of what I said came out right, but I couldn’t stop myself. It had been building for so long that when I finally unleashed my feelings on him, it was a massive attack. If only I had known how to fight, or if only he had felt inspired to even try.
“Fight for me, please!” I said. “Show me that you care about me at all! Say anything, because I’m leaving, and I’m walking out that door! I’m done with this relationship if you can’t fight for me!”
Tye just sat there staring at me.
Seriously?? I think I’ve made a pretty good case. I even dropped the “L” word! And I’m getting NOTHING?!
By this point, I was crying . . . well, more like uncontrollably sobbing.
I stood up and stormed out of his room, down the hallway, and out the front door. To really make my point (as all rational women do
), I slammed the door behind me as hard as I could. But I couldn’t leave. I stood in the yard, pacing and crying and going over everything in my mind. Even though it hadn’t gone like I’d wanted it to AT ALL (and it was beginning to dawn on me that maybe there wasn’t anything I could say or do to make it right between Tye and me), I couldn’t walk away. I loved him, and I knew I was losing him. There was also a small (okay, a large) part of me that really thought Tye would follow me out and chase me down so that I wouldn’t have to leave like this.
But he didn’t.
So . . . I yanked open the front door, rushed back into the hallway, and flew through the door into his room. He was still sitting there, staring blankly, like he didn’t know what had just happened. I couldn’t stop, so I started up right where I’d left off, telling him how much I loved him and all of the other feelings and dreams I had hidden from him for so many months, as well has how taken for granted I felt. I was still crying, so I talked as best as I could through the tears. Tye watched me warily, still not saying anything.
After a few more minutes of this one-sided conversation, I ran outside again. Making it a point to slam the door once again. And, again, I paced in front of Tye’s condo. I couldn’t bring myself to leave. It was beginning to sink in that once I left, our relationship would be over. I didn’t want that. Even if I just had a little of him, it would be so much better than not having him at all. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing Tye completely.
So . . . I swung around to go back into the house for a third time. But when I turned the knob, the door wouldn’t budge. I shook it.
He’d locked the door on me!
I was beyond hysterical at this point, crying, desperate. Sure there was some right thing I could do or say if I just had the chance to keep explaining myself to this man who I loved so deeply.
Maybe if I could just apologize? I mean, this fight we were now having was all my fault, and I knew I was acting crazy and not like myself. But if I could just say the right words to make him get it, then it could all be okay again. I stood outside, banging on the door. I didn’t care that it was two in the morning. I didn’t care how I looked. My heart was broken. I couldn’t give up and just walk away.
Finally, Tye opened the door. He stood in the doorway for a moment, looking defeated, before letting me back in.
I don’t honestly remember most of the details about this point in the night, because I was so consumed with emotion. But I’m sure I wasn’t making any sense at all. I’d gotten everything out that I needed to, and then I was just left in hysterics because I knew I was losing him. There was nothing I could do or say, so I was reduced to repeating, again and again, the only words that came into my head.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t really even mean it!”
As those words left me, I still had enough wits about me to know that it wasn’t coming out the way I wanted or needed it to, and that I was beyond knowing what I was trying to get across anymore. But I still couldn’t stop.
After my final rant, I took a deep breath.
It was over. I had nothing left to give. Nothing left to say.
I stormed out of Tye’s condo one last time, slammed his front door, and walked out to my Honda Accord. Once in the driver’s seat, I collapsed over the steering wheel and bawled. Actually, to say I bawled is an understatement. It was more like one of those complete emotional meltdowns that exhausted five-year-olds have. I was beyond reason or rationality.
But I still had hope.
Maybe he’ll come after me. Maybe once he’s had a chance to let my words sink in, he’ll realize he had been wrong, and he will chase after me. I’m sure he’s just letting things sink in right now . . . but he’ll stop me before I leave for good.
I had finally stood up for myself, but I did it thinking that he would say, “Don’t walk out. Don’t leave.”
And, instead, not only had he actually left the door wide open, he hadn’t stopped me from walking through it. But I hadn’t admitted that to myself yet. I still sat in the car and kept waiting for him to come and tell me that he’d made a mistake, that he’d fight for me, and that he was sorry he had made me sad.
So I sat there and waited.
Five minutes . . .
Ten minutes . . . Then, I saw Tye’s bedroom light go off. My body was heaving and shaking, torn apart by grief. I couldn’t catch even a single breath.
He’s done. He has locked me out and is going to bed. How could he just let things end this way??
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t grasp what had happened. Part of me was convinced that I should circle around the block and go back again; that there was still something that could be said or done to win him back. But I was finally beginning to accept what I knew inside: It was over.
So I headed home. Thankfully, I was living with one of the other Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders in an apartment that was only about two minutes away (don’t think that was any coincidence), so it wasn’t a long drive, even if it was a miserable one. I kept asking myself again and again, What did I just do? Why did I do that?
It was two or three in the morning by this point, but it was a Friday night, and my roommate, Leah, was awake when I got home. I was glad to see her, but her boyfriend was over, and that just made me feel worse. Here I was, coming home by myself after the worst night of my life, and there she was, all cozy and happy with her boyfriend. They might as well have told me that they’d just gotten engaged.
I sat down on her bed. She sat down next to me and looked at me with concern, wondering what had just happened. Because to look at me, you would have thought somebody had just passed away.
“I think it’s over,” I said. “I think the relationship’s over.”
She went and got ice cream out of the freezer and tried to be a good friend. But I was not interested in ice cream or anything she had to say. I don’t know what can be said to console somebody at that point anyhow. I’ll be honest, she was talking, and all I remember was her mouth moving. I don’t remember any of the words. It was like the schoolteacher in the Charlie Brown cartoons: “Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah.” I was too busy replaying what had just happened with Tye.
Did I really just do that? Did I really just mess this up, and say this, and do that, and go back a million times, and look like a psycho girl, and yell at him, and slam the door behind me every time I left?
We sat there for I don’t know how long, with me crying and her trying to console me.
And I mean, bless her heart, she just kept saying, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
Well, there was nothing she could say. There was no calming me down.
Finally, I realized how completely emotionally exhausted I was. I stood shakily, walked out of her room, crawled into my bed with my makeup and clothes on, and pulled the covers up as high as they would go. I was sure there was no way I was going to be able to fall asleep. But my eyes were burning from crying for so long, and I had hit that emotional wall where I just didn’t have it in me to stay awake anymore. Before I knew it, I fell asleep.
•
I woke up in the morning, and my first thought was, Did that really just happen? Did I really just do that? Maybe it was all just a bad dream, and none of it had actually happened.
And then, I realized I was in the same clothes from the night before, and my eyes were all puffy and swollen from crying so hard, and I knew that the worst thing I could imagine had happened.
It’s over. And it’s my fault.
But then, I got up to my old tricks again. Guys would call it pathetic. Relationship books would call it unacceptable. I called it persistent.
I didn’t really know if it was 100 percent over. I knew we’d had this huge fight, and I knew I’d said I was leaving, but neither of us had actually said that the relationship was over. No one had said: “Don’t call me. Don’t text me. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
&
nbsp; So maybe it wasn’t really over.
I lay in my bed forever, trying to figure out if we really broke up or if we had just had a really bad fight.
If only I hadn’t done that last night, we’d still be together. We’d still be going out, and everything would be great. Even if I wasn’t getting everything I wanted, I’d still rather have him in my life than have to live without him.
The whole time I was over at his house the night before, he had never said anything. And so, I had no idea what he was thinking, or feeling. And that made for a very odd end to the evening, and an even more confusing morning after, which led to a lot of wondering for me. But I was certain that, deep down, he was hurting just as badly as I was. That he didn’t want to lose me anymore than I wanted to lose him. That he would surely call me to clear things up, and we’d be fine again.
I was sure I would hear from him. There was no way we could have a confrontation like that, without him wanting to clear it up.
But, then, reality set in.
Part of me thought he would call me to apologize, or to have his say, or to at least see if I was okay. And part of me knew that if he hadn’t said anything yet, he probably didn’t have anything to say.
So, rational as I was at this time, I called him. I’m sure that’s breaking all kinds of dating rules. But I honestly didn’t know what our situation was, and I couldn’t stand the uncertainty.
He didn’t pick up.
I left a voicemail. I had said I was leaving, but I still couldn’t let go.
“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say now, and I don’t know if I’m even supposed to be calling you,” I said in my message. “I’m sorry about what happened last night, but maybe we could just talk about it?”
And then, I hung up, and the waiting really began . . .
My Reality Page 2
