All Text No Closure

Her stomach was into knots. The buzz, signaling a new text on her phone, instantly pierced through her navel, knotted her stomach and shot up to her chest and neck, delivering a relentless grip of anxiety.

Sitting on the edge of her bed in a halfway furnished apartment, she knew it was him, even though they hadn’t spoken in months. Her last encounter with him was when she informed him she would not renew the lease on the apartment they had together. The cycle had become draining. They would fight, make up then he would disrupt the peace; with a new accusation, a new maltreatment…then it would start all over again.

She hated him.

She looked down at her phone to read the text: “I think it is best if we just divorce,” it said. “I am not happy and I know you’re not happy either.”

She took a steady, deep breath and closed her eyes. Her ears began to burn. The anger started to boil around her ears, neck and face. The six months of separation was nearly up. That was supposed to be the window of time and space for both of them to decide if what they were doing was best. She already knew it was best. She knew when Christmas and New Year’s came by and they didn’t say a word to each other, even though they were still living together. The warm connection that was once there was now more frigid and drier than an abandoned corpse. I told him, she reminded herself. After one of their many fights, she looked at him one day and said, “When I leave, I’m not coming back!”

Shifting her attention back to his text, she hit the reply area with her finger to tell him off. She wanted to let him know that she was 10 steps ahead of his dumb ass, and that what he was telling her wasn’t news. But then she paused. She didn’t want to give him that. She didn’t want her newfound journey of peace to be disrupted. She exited out of the reply box and clicked on her sister’s name and called her instead. She answered after two rings.

“Oh my God, I’m so glad I caught you,” she told her sister.

“What’s going on,” her sister inquired.

She proceeded to tell her about the incoming text and how she wanted to fire back at him. As always, her sister calmed her down, like a huge block of ice humbling a raging pot of boiling water.

“You know you’re better than that,” she told her. “If you’ve moved on from him and that situation, send him a blessing and wish him the best.”

She frowned at her sister’s advice. “Blessing? Wish him the best?” Then she sighed, knowing how her sister would respond to her short-lived protest. She was tired of being heart-broken and angry.

“You heard me,” her sister reiterated. “Set yourself free already. Go on a date or something!”

She frowned, then took another deep breath and clicked on his message. Her lips gripped and folded into her mouth while her thumb moved mercilessly across the digital keyboard. When she was done, she gave it a quick read before hitting “send”: “I agree and appreciate you sharing your thought with me,” it began. “God bless, and may His light continuously shine on you.”

Before changing her mind, she quickly hit the button, as the message traveled off into the digital stratosphere to land in his phone. There was no immediate reply, so she went about the rest of her day.

Several days had turned into weeks and there was still no reply. She figured they had mutually moved on, accepting the fate of their doomed marriage. One evening, she was getting ready to attend a family event when her phone buzzed with a new text message: “Hi, you got some strange mail that looks like it came from the IRS. You also left some things in the fridge that I don’t want to throw away. You can come get them since I don’t have your new address.”

She read the message a few times before putting the phone down on her bed, then announced to herself, “Yeah, I made the right decision.”