I Stopped Chasing Him After Ten Years And Never Looked Back Chapter 03

The change happened little by little.

The first week after I stopped chasing Jared, I felt out of sorts.

My hand would automatically reach for my phone, wanting to open my phone to see if he’d replied.

Then I’d remember I hadn’t sent a message.

No message, so no need to wait.

It was a strange feeling.

Like someone who’d been running for ten years suddenly slamming on the brakes momentum makes you want to keep going, but your feet have already stopped.

On the third day, I made a decision.

On my way home from work, I didn’t go straight back. Instead, I turned onto a street I’d never taken before.

At the end of the road was a gym, with orange lights glowing through the glass door.

I stood at the entrance for thirty seconds, then pushed the door open.

The girl at the front desk asked if I wanted a trial class.

“I’ll take a yearly membership.”

I swiped my card for three thousand six hundred dollars without a single tremor in my hand.

This was the first time I’d spent a significant amount of money on myself, and I didn’t send Jared a message saying “I signed up for a gym membership.”

Before, any time I spent more than two hundred dollars, I’d tell him voluntarily, like I was checking in.

His reaction was always the same. “Hmm, as long as you’re happy.”

Those five words, “as long as you’re happy” translated to “I don’t care.”

Now I didn’t check in anymore.

On the fifth day, I dug out the gray canvas bag in the corner.

Inside were my college sketches, design drafts, and even the offer letter from that design firm.

The offer was long expired, of course, but the drafts were still there.

When I opened the first page, I smelled the scent of old paper.

Cora leaned over to look.

“Did Mommy draw these? They’re so pretty!”

“Yeah, Mommy used to draw.”

“Used to? Don’t you draw now?”

I looked at her earnest little face.

“I still do. I just haven’t in a long time.”

That night, after Cora fell asleep, I cleared off the dining table, spread out a sheet of paper, and drew a picture.

My hand was rusty, the lines not as sharp as they used to be.

But when I finished the last stroke, something inside me loosened.

Like a pipe that had been clogged for ages, finally letting a drop of water through.

In those two weeks, Jared noticed absolutely nothing.

I stopped texting him, and he never asked “Why aren’t you texting me anymore?”

I stopped calling, and he never called to ask “Why haven’t you called lately?”

I stopped waiting for him at the door. He walked in, changed his shoes, ate dinner, scrolled through his phone, and went to bed.

Everything was exactly the same.

Turns out my presence was that insignificant.

So insignificant that even when I disappeared, he didn’t notice.

Before, I thought that was tragic.

Now I thought it was just as well.

It meant that me stopping chasing him had no impact on him at all.

So what was the point of chasing him for ten years?

The point was that there was no point.

Saying those words hurt more than any time he’d hung up on me.

But after the pain came a strange, unfamiliar sense of relief.

My friend Alison Catton asked me to dinner.

She was the only college friend I’d stayed in touch with all these years.

We sat down, ordered, and she spoke first. “You look better lately.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah. Before, the first thing you’d say to me was always ‘He didn’t text me back again.’ You didn’t mention it today.”

I smiled. “I stopped chasing him.”

Alison’s hand froze mid-air, holding her fork. “What did you say?”

“I said, I stopped chasing Jared.”

She put down her fork, looked at me seriously for five full seconds, and then she clapped.

Right there in the restaurant, even the table next to us looked over. She clapped three times, hard.

“Tisha, that’s the most sensible thing you’ve said in ten years.”

I was stunned by her clapping, and a little teary-eyed.

But I held it back.

I’d used up my quota of tears in those ten years.