Chapter 1: My Ex is Voldemort

“Daisy never expected me to change.”

Maybe I said Daisy’s name like a curse word or like ‘Voldemort’, but I knew it riled her up and I needed to hear her make a fuss about me one more time. It was starting to feel like she really didn’t want me around lately. And let’s just say I couldn’t stand for it.

When she stormed out this very last time I felt the same relief as the last two times, but I haven’t seen her since. I can’t always explain it, but somehow this is the only way I can love her. When I’ve had to strain to remember details about her and I forget the annoying way she smiles at me when she thinks something’s funny and I just smile back. Because I want her to be herself and be happy. Oh! And the things she asked me to forgive her for! I mean real stuff that most people would have disappeared over. But I stayed. Except now, I just can’t keep her close.

She slammed the door so hard the right side of the apartment shook and the flower pot full of fake flowers tilted and found its balance again like a bobble head. Eventually the vibrations going through the door settled. I gazed at the bluish grey suede of the couch across the room and then the purple-grey of the clouds as the monsoon passed over Phoenix. Whenever a woman leaves my place upset, there is this unimaginable calm that quickly overtakes the space like a vacuum. And in this space I am weightless and at peace.

Ding!

Like clockwork, chimes begin to go off and I already know it’s her. Standing slowly because I feel lightheaded, I walk to the western side of the condo and open the bedroom window to let raindrops fall in their slanted pattern into my room and onto the cherry floors. The sound of insects penetrate the room at a low hiss and the rain plastering the screen and floors drowns out my pounding head. I don’t dare turn on the light, but rather let the dusky glow rock me to sleep for the next ten or more hours.