Forget About Me »

O N E

Hey, it's Tay. I'm probably out doing something way more fun than answering the phone so leave a message and if you seem cool, I'll get back to 'ya.

Two rings. That was all Alex got before the phone switched over to the same chirpy voice message that he now had now memorized. Alex knew she wasn't going to answer, because she never did, but sometimes he just needed to hear the voice that wasn't yelling at him again. The voice that wasn't threatening to take everything away from him.

"She's not coming back." Alex rotated in his chair to face Tay's sister, one of the only people still left on his side of the divorce. "She's calling the lawyers."

Alex looked down at the table in front of him. "She's not coming back." Alex had recited those lines to himself an unbelievable amount of times. Repeating the phrase to a sad reflection of himself in the bathroom mirror. His eyes were red and puffy from the hours he had spent crying and his cheeks were stained a rosy pink.

"I'm really sorry, Alex. You know that none of us think you're a bad guy, right?" Alex just nodded solemnly, it being the only gesture he could seem to muster out with the current situation.

Deep down he knew it would never last with all of the fighting they had been doing lately, but it still hurt knowing she was ignoring him. He would never get that feeling of pride every time he was with her, never get to share an inside joke with her. It was the smallest things that hurt Alex the most and she knew that. She hadn't even been able to come and discuss the divorce with him personally. Anytime she needed to contact him it was done through one of her siblings.

Alex often imagined she was with some other man, laughing at an inside joke that only the two of them would understand. Her slapping his shoulder playfully as they laughed before falling asleep beside each other every night.

"Let's talk."

Apparently, Sam's idea of talking consisted of a mostly one sided conversation focused on what it was that Tay wanted from the divorce. The entire list of things that she wanted were things that Alex knew for a fact she had never liked. Some of the items were even things the couple had fought about keeping.

One thing on her list of demands was an old clock that had belonged to Alex's grandfather. He couldn't even count on both of his hands how many times she has complained of the loud ticking always coming from the clock or how out dated it looked in their shared apartment. However, the clock had been one of the first things that she had requested.

"She can't have all of that. I know for a fact, most of those things she has always complained about." Alex protested. He shook his head and pushed his chair back to leave. That had been his final word on the subject and didn't want to bother to try and discuss the matter any further than he had to because there was just nothing to argue.

"Alex..." Sam had tried to stop him, he imagined it was because there was more news from Tay that she couldn't be bothered to tell him in person. Or in an email. Or by phone. 

"Tell Tay if she needs something to just call me instead of sending you or Devin to try and retell her silly messages." 

Alex heard the chime of the door when he opened it and it slam shut whenever it closed behind him. Because of the frigid weather surrounding him and the lack of scarf he had brought with him, he was forced to pull a part of his coat over his nose and mouth as he walked to keep from freezing.

He almost felt ashamed of the way he had acted towards Sam because she was only trying to help. None of her other family had gotten involved and if they had, it was likely because they were defending Alex more than anything.

But it hadn't been his fault that Tay had brought everyone into this and taken herself out. At some point, the two were going to have to interact and she was just pushing it. Alex couldn't understand what her plan with avoiding him was, but he just imagined that was because he liked seeing her and she had never liked seeing him. 

They had always acted nice when they were around people, but as soon as they were alone in the car together, the two were just left to bicker to one another about something that one of them had said. Often it was something that Alex had eaten that wasn't on their "diet" despite him not having even realized they were on one. 

It was small things that made Alex remember all of the bad times they had and forget the few good times they had together.

Alex knew as soon as he got home though and saw something small that Tay had forgotten to take with her, like a bobby pin or a make up brush, the cycle of crying and laying in his living room was going to start all over again and it was just going to continue.

He grabbed his key from his pocket and unlocked the door, stepping into the tiny apartment. Alex was immediately hit with a wave of heat as his apartment was close to eighty degrees. He hated the heat, but he had never been bothered to change it. The thermostat was too close to their old room.

The house key was just kind of tossed onto the side table sitting by the door. They used to have a bowl so they would always know where the keys were, but he had gotten rid of it soon after Tay moved out. It had been one of the only pretty things the couple had ever picked out together and he couldn't stand to see it sitting on the table and haunting him anymore. It was just another reminder that he needed to get rid of.

The small couch sitting in the living room had a small dent in it from where he had been sitting regularly, and that's exactly where Alex headed to first. He knew the apartment wasn't healthy, but he couldn't stop himself from keeping everything the same. It would feel wrong to change anything. It would feel like he was leaving Tay behind and he hated that feeling.

Grabbing his phone, he decided on giving her phone one more try, but it went to voice mail and he just found him listening to the silence of the voice recording, closing his eyes because this was their relationship now whether he liked it or not. Just silence.

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This was a long journey to write, but I have to think that I like how it turned out. 
This story is kind of going to be a relaxer story for me. The next chapter is going to be much different and I think it will be a nice different. Kind of a look into their past relationship.
I'm excited to write it to say the least.

As always, thanks for reading!