I have
only one. He and I were four years. I haven't spoken to him in over two years and haven't laid eyes on him in maybe
three, and he lives in the area still. This morning I checked my
email to find a message from him regarding my personal
website. He gave me his numbers where I could reach him, but I didn't have the desire to
speak to him. The last time I called his home number, it was to get his parents' new area code so that I could visit them and get my belongings out of their
shed, where they had been resting more than a year after he and I broke up. His wife answered the
phone, and while I'm not sure if she knows about me, he was not amused.
I knew right away why he wrote me. If you run a search on his name, my site pulls up and my depiction of him is far from nice. Since he works in the computer industry, he likely didn't want such a negative perception of him to be so well known, to show up on the first match on Google. So I checked my website to find that there was an error pulling it up. I had posted to the night before, so that startled me. I thought maybe The Ex had taken the site hostage, maybe he wanted to sue me for slander. How would I know?
I emailed the guy who runs my site for me, frantic for reasons why the site was down. Then I emailed The Ex to see if we could discuss this via email. It is hard to have an ex in town that you do not have anything to say to and the one time you do, it's surely going to be unpleasant and cold. An hour passed.
I had emailed The Ex my work number. I felt infected by even having his number on my screen, let alone having to use it. Fortunately, he called me. He announced himself with his full name, as though I would not recognize his voice. He went on and on with what felt like a very cold and business-like manner, which I expected. He said he found the site and saw that my writing was improving impressively, that he was happy that I was doing well, blah blah blah BUT he would prefer that anyone looking to hire him not be so able to find out about his seedy past.
Some people told me that unless he really did sure for slander, I should keep the site as it is and chalk it up to "you made your bed and no you're going to lie in it." But from talking to him in those brief moments today, I remembered something my friends had told me after they heard of our breakup. They said that while he was a nice guy overall, The Ex was always a bit too fake for them, that he was holding up a heavy front. When people who have never met him in person see photos of The Ex, they describe him as cocky, self-centered, over-confident. And it wasn't until today that I saw it for myself and agreed with them.
It turns out that he had nothing to do with the site being down, but I'm sure if that's what he wanted to do, he could have. And I could have dealt my end differently. I guess I just don't have it in me anymore.