The Only Rule: The Casual Rule 3

by AC Netzel

  Enormous displays of gaudy cocktail and fake diamond solitaire rings catch my attention. Some are pretty, in a vulgar over-the-top circa 1985 kind of way. Hundreds of oversized faux rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, and topaz rings are squeezed into the black velvet ring holders. I locate the trays with my ring sizes and slip one on each finger. They look ridiculous next to my engagement ring. In a weird way, I like them. Two for twenty bucks. Why not? Purchasing something from a local business will make my mother happy.

  And maybe get her off my back.

  I wiggle my jewel-embellished fingers and admire their sparkle by the light beaming down from the fixture above. I look like Liberace’s long-lost daughter. I admire the reflection of nine ridiculous rings and my one authentic engagement ring in front of the small mirror on the glass countertop.

  There’s a sudden change in the air quality of the store. I frown when the air fills with the scent of men’s cologne. I haven’t inhaled that fragrance in a long time.

  “Julia?” A chill runs up my spine as a familiar voice startles me.

  My eyes slam shut, and my body stiffens as I silently wish him away.

  “I thought it was you,” he says.

  Slowly, I twist around to face him. There he is: tall, muscular, and pure asshole. My face heats up to what I’m sure is a magnificent shade of candy apple red over the embarrassingly large, tasteless rings I’ve been wiggling about.

  “Hello Michael,” I mutter to my Ex. My stomach dips and the palms of my hands are already clammy. Keep calm, Julia. I steady my breathing—slowly in and out, in and out. I won’t allow this ass from the past to rattle me.

  I puff out my chest and hold up my invisible armor. Satan’s son will never see me weak again. He won’t witness how his presence still gets a reaction out of me. A violent, I want to kick your tiny junk reaction, but a reaction nonetheless.

  I make certain I look him directly in the eyes. Unfortunately, he’s still good-looking. I hoped karma served him a slice of ugly when we imploded. His light brown hair is a little shorter than the last time I saw him. Steel gray eyes still draw you in, and that rounded Cupid’s bow on his upper lip is perfect. Too bad it’s the doorway to a mouth full of lies.

  The last time I saw him, between my tears, I couldn’t look at him. Once I was visiting my parents and I spotted him walking toward the local hardware store. Like a coward, I turned the corner and hid to avoid him. I couldn’t face him and all the shit he stirs up inside of me.

  “Wow, you look great. I forgot how beautiful you are,” the asshole says, grinning wide. “New York has been good to you.” He steps forward extending his arms out, awkwardly leaning in for a hug.

  Holding up my hand, I take a quick step back to escape, my backside presses up against the counter. “Please don’t.”

  “Still harboring hard feelings?” he asks, taking a step back.

  “There’s no harboring, Michael. I simply don’t want you to touch me.” God only knows what I’d catch.

  He holds up his hands in surrender. “Okay, no hug.”

  “What are you doing here? Last I heard, you were living in Brooklyn,” I ask.

  “I am. I came down to help my folks move. They’re heading out to Florida.”

  I nod politely. Good. Now I don’t have to worry about seeing reminders of this jerk when I visit my family.

  “So, it’s been a while. You’re here to see your family?” he asks.

  “Among other things, yes.”

  “Are you still working at that publishing house in the city? What was it called? Something Lake?”

  “Wisteria Hill. And yes, I’m still there.” The idiot can’t even remember the name of the company I work for.

  “Good. You liked it there.”

  “Still do. Are you still working downtown?”

  “Yeah, same place.”

  I nod. I’m not much for polite small talk with the devil who crushed my soul.

  “So,” I say, uncomfortably. I loathe that he still gets under my skin. Not in that ‘I can’t have enough of him’ way, more like ‘I can’t get far enough away from him’. He’s like a damn parasite. I hate that I have any reaction. He’s been dead to me for a long time.

  “I heard you were seeing someone. My sister saw you on the beach last Memorial Day with your family and some guy.”

  I nod, my lips pursed. I guess his sister was too embarrassed by her brother’s bad behavior to come up and say hello to me.

  “Are you still with him?” he asks.

  I nod again, as I slide the ten pounds of costume jewelry off my fingers and one-by-one slip them back in the black velvet display cases.

  “I still think about you… a lot.” He pauses and swallows. “You know, I am sorry for…,” he drifts off. The chickenshit can’t even admit out loud that he was a cheating sleaze.

  “You’re sorry you got caught.”

  “Isn’t it time you forgave me?” he asks in the same flirty tone that he used to trick me into believing his lies. He hasn’t lost his ability to charm anyone who doesn’t know the real him: the insensitive, selfish, egotistical asshole. But I know. My eyes are wide open this time.

  “No. I don’t forgive you.” I stare directly into his eyes. He needs to see I’m no longer the girl he crushed. “You don’t get a pass on stomping on my heart and treating my trust like it meant nothing, just because you ask for it. Do you want forgiveness? Earn it. Be a decent human being. Don’t be a cheating asshole to the next girl.”

  “I know I made a mistake,” he says.

  I stare at him incredulously. My eyes widen as I shake my head in complete disbelief. “A mistake is putting salt instead of sugar in your coffee. Inserting your penis into some random’s vagina is a deliberate act.

  “Every time you stuck your dick in another girl involved a conscious decision and action. Every. Single. Time. And at any time, you could have made the choice not to do it and stay faithful. But you didn’t. Did you think of me while you got ready to meet her? Did you think of me when you shaved? Showered? When you put your car in drive to sleep with someone else… Did you think of me at all?

  “During all these actions, you could have grown a conscience and stayed home. Or saw me. But you didn’t. You got in your car, you rang her doorbell, and fucked someone who wasn’t me.” My anger bubbles over like I’m reliving the day I found out about his philandering again. Taking a breath, I bring my voice level down before someone overhears us. “Did it feel good, Michael? Screwing her while screwing me over? Did it get you off? Make you feel like a man? And let’s not sugarcoat this. We both know it was many insertions with countless randoms.”

  “Okay, I made a lot of mistakes. I was young. Stupid. Maybe our meeting here is fate. I always figured we’d find our way back. You know, start over after we sampled life a little. I was a jerk for what I did to you but I did love you.”

  “Oh Michael, I wish that meant something to me. But it doesn’t.”

  “I tried to get a hold of you over the past year—to talk things out.”

  “I blocked your number.”

  “That’s what I figured. I guess I’ve been waiting for you to forgive me. Maybe eventually come back.”

  “Don’t wait. I learned the hard way that you’re not the person I thought you were. I’m never coming back to you.”

  “We were good together once, babe,” he says seductively.

  This is his usual Modus operandi, whenever I’d get suspicious of his activities, he’d lay on a thick layer of bullshit. And I fell for it. Every damn time. I chose not to believe the things that were clearly in front of me. I trusted too much until his shady actions stole my ability to trust again.

  “I’m not your babe,” I hiss in disgust. “And you’re rewriting history. Our relationship was toxic. Honestly, I don’t think it was good for either of us. You wanted to party, live the single life. I wanted… fidelity.”

  I place the last ring in the velvet display box and continue. “Your ego may
find this hard to believe, but I don’t think about you anymore. I don’t wonder how you are, who you’re with or if you’re thinking of me. I’m not saying this to sound like a bitter ex-girlfriend. The simple truth is I don’t care. We have nothing to do with each other. The past we shared, the one you look back on so fondly, was ruined when you cheated on me. Multiple times. I didn’t matter to you then. And you don’t matter to me now. You don’t get my forgiveness and you sure as hell don’t get me.”

  “You used to tell me I was the man of your dreams.” His tone drips in conceit, like my heart was a trophy. I want to throat punch him. What was I thinking by staying with this jerk for so long?

  “Don’t be smug, Michael. Nightmares are dreams too,” I tell him, knocking his inflated ego down a few pegs.

  “I know you hate me but don’t diminish what we once had. We had some good times.”

  “I’m not diminishing it. I see it for what it was. Good times built on lies aren’t times worth remembering.”

  “You loved me once.”

  “And you ruined it. If you loved me as you claim, you wouldn’t have cheated on me. If you loved me, you wouldn’t have betrayed my trust. But you didn’t love me, not the way I deserved.

  “And you certainly didn’t respect me. You were my boyfriend. I was supposed to feel like I was your everything. Instead, you left me feeling unwanted, like I was no one special. I thought I failed as a girlfriend but then I realized… You’re the one who failed. You failed as a boyfriend. You failed as a man.”

  I puff out my chest, feeling stronger with each word said. “Do you have any idea how humiliating it was for me? Everyone knew. People whispered behind my back. Do you know the shame I felt when I had to go to my family doctor and get an STD test over something you did?”

  He exhales a long breath, staring down briefly at the floor then back up at me. “The other girls… they never meant anything to me,” he says softly.

  “They meant something to me.”

  He looks down to the floor again. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why did you do it? Why didn’t you just break up with me if you wanted to sleep around?”

  He shrugs. “Because I loved you. I didn’t want to lose you. I wasn’t the one who wanted to break up. You were.”

  “You can’t undo the things you did, just like I can’t ‘unremember’ them,” I say, air quoting ‘unremembered.’

  “To this day, I wish we were still together. I did love you.” He shrugs. “I guess I always will.”

  The air between us is thick. I don’t know how to respond to that. I pause, looking up at the ceiling waiting for the words to come to me. I look back at him and see a spark of sincerity and remorse in his eyes. Maybe there is a little decency in him after all.

  Five percent at best, but some.

  “You’re not in love with me. You’re in love with the memory of a girl you knew at a fixed point in time. I’m not her anymore. I’ve changed and hopefully, you have too.”

  “Manhattan and Brooklyn are only a subway ride away. Maybe we could meet up again. Start slow? It’ll be different. I’ll be different. I was broken then. Confused about what I wanted. You were good for me. You believed in me, even when I didn’t. Maybe you’re the only one who can fix me.”

  “You weren’t broken. You were selfish. And I’m sorry, I’m not your Band-Aid. Or your shrink. I hope you work out your issues and never do to another girl what you did to me.”

  He looks down at the floor as my words wash over him. I don’t feel the rage I used to feel. I spoke my piece and it’s liberating.

  He shakes his head then gazes back at me. “Well, believe it or not, I meant what I said. I know what I did was wrong. You deserved better.”

  I exhale a long sigh. “Look, I’m glad you’re doing okay. I wish you well. Is that what you need from me? Some kind of absolution? I don’t forgive you. I never will. That’s the way I’m made, but I don’t wish you ill.”

  “You forgot one,” he says, pointing a finger toward my hands.

  “One what?”

  “One of the rings you were trying on unless you plan on buying that one.” His gaze fixed on my engagement ring.

  “Oh. This one’s mine.”

  His eyes widen. “You’re getting married?”

  My heart beats faster and I beam. “Yeah.” I thought he’d already know. Everyone always knows everybody else’s business in this town.

  “Well, I feel like a fool.” He frowns and rakes his fingers through his hair. “I… I guess congratulations are in order.”

  “Guess so.” I shrug, twisting my engagement ring around my ring finger with my thumb.

  “Motherfucker,” Allie’s voice echoes from the opposite end of the aisle. We turn our heads and spot her barreling down the aisle on a warpath toward us. Her arms are folded in front of her chest and she has a scowl that would scare a Marine.

  Stopping in front of Michael, her jaw is clenched tight. She glares at him with the look of murder in her eyes then lunges at him. I jump in-between them to stop her assault. Allie was the one who broke the news to me about Michael’s philandering. She picked up my broken pieces and helped glue me back together once it was over. I think she hates him more than me.

  “Well, well, well. Lookie here… A blast from the pasthole. The devil himself walks among us. I didn’t realize this store had a dedicated aisle for Big Assholes with Little Dicks.”

  “Good to see you too, Allie.”

  “Mike. Hole,” she snaps, her hands now at her sides, balled into fists. “Ran out of desperate girls to stick your tiny dick in? Hitting up the geriatric division and making a move on Mrs. Baker now?”

  “Allie, it’s cool. We’re good here. We were just saying goodbye,” I assure her, hoping to diffuse her temper before she uses that fist still clenched at her side.

  “Did Julia tell you she’s engaged?” she snarls. “To a real man. Not a pretend one like you.”

  “Nice to know you held on to your hostility,” he answers.

  Stupid ass. Mikehole knows better than to fuck with Allie when she’s in protective mode. He’ll be on the floor in fetal position in two minutes.

  “I absolutely hate you,” she hisses.

  “Still fighting that unspoken attraction you have for me?” he teases.

  I forgot how arrogant and dense he could be. Moron.

  “In your dreams, prick. Or should I say little prick?”

  “Same ol’ Allie.”

  “Same ol’ sleazebag.”

  “Look, I know I was a shit,” he says.

  “That’s an insult to shit.” She pokes her index finger into his chest repeatedly.

  “Okay guys, it’s been fun reliving your hatred toward each other.” I pull Allie’s hand away from him.

  “You didn’t touch him, did you? He’s probably contagious.” She opens her handbag, rummaging through it. “Where the hell is my hand sanitizer? I have to disinfect my finger before I get an STD.”

  I roll my eyes. “Allie, can you give us a minute to finish our conversation. Please?”

  She looks at him then me. I nod slightly, assuring her it’s okay to go.

  “Fine,” she says to me, redirecting her gaze on Mikehole. “I’m watching you, little dickhead” She pokes his chest hard with her index finger again.

  “Allie. Go,” I demand sternly.

  “Okay, okay.” She points at her eyes with a backward “v” sign and then points at him. “Even though I’m not here, I see and hear everything, motherfucker.” She walks back up the aisle, loitering at the end, pretending she’s interested in the seashell jewelry boxes on the end cap.

  “That guy you’re marrying… is he good to you?” he asks.

  Smiling wide, I nod. “He’s the best man I know.”

  “I’m glad. You deserve it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I can’t blame him for wanting to marry you. I speak from experience when I say it’s hard to live without you.”

&
nbsp; “Well, I suppose he could live without me. He just doesn’t want to.”

  “So, you’re really happy?”

  “Deliriously. I suppose I should thank you. If you weren’t such a colossal asshole, we might still be together, and I’d never have met him,” I tease.

  “You’re welcome.” He chuckles. “I miss your sense of humor.”

  “Yeah, well.” I shrug a shoulder. There’s nothing I miss about this person standing in front of me.

  “Yeah, well.” He clears his throat. “I should be going. Despite the tongue lashing, it was good to see you again. Your fiancé is a lucky guy.”

  “He knows. I tell him all the time.”

  He laughs. “Goodbye, Julia. Congratulations.” Awkwardly, he leans in and kisses my cheek.

  “Thank you, Michael. Take care of yourself.”

  He walks toward the front of the store, passing Allie who hisses at him and throws a shell in his direction nearly hitting him. He grabs the door handle and turns back to me.

  “Hey Julia,” he calls out.

  “Hmm?”

  “Give my best to Rose,” he says.

  I laugh. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  He smiles. “You’re probably right. See you around.”

  “See ya,” I say, knowing we’ll never see each other again and that’s fine with me. He opens the door and leaves. Allie strolls down the aisle toward me.

  “Fucking moron,” she grumbles.

  “Is he gone? Can he see us?”

  She peeks through the front window. “Yeah, he’s gone.”

  “Good.” I wrap my arms around her as my invisible armor vanishes and tears run down my cheeks. She wraps her arms around me and holds me tight.

  “Jules? Hey, why are you crying? Don’t let that jerk affect you.”

  I sniffle, wiping my tears with the back of my hand. “I’m crying because I’m free. I’ve bottled that up for so long. It felt good to get it all out. I finally laid my past to rest.”