Blocked & Bossed Up

Jason Caldwell proposed to me, eyes rimmed red.

I nearly laughed in his face.

He'd spent ten years breaking up with me. By the time he finally learned to say sorry, it was too late.

Jason was breaking up with me. Again.

The first time, I was eighteen. I'd gone down to the river to be sad about it. So this time, I went down to the river.

Turns out the wind off the water is freezing. I went home.

On the way back I passed the wing spot. At twenty, a breakup meant I couldn't eat for days.

Turns out the guy's cooking had gotten really good.

I finally made it home and sat down to write the make-up text. The long, groveling kind I'd sent at twenty-two. And twenty-three. And twenty-four. Like paying a bill.

Turns out my boss was sending me out of town for work.

I was gone almost a month. In another city, my career was quietly having the time of its life.

Jason cracked first. He called.

"Why haven't you come to apologize?"

Oh. Right. I knew I'd been forgetting something.

Getting dumped after a certain age is tricky like that.

All I could do was test the waters.

"So sorry, so sorry. Work's been insane. Totally forgot to write the make-up text."

"Or... how about we just stay broken up?"

Chapter 1

"Why would I need to propose? Zoe's not marrying anyone else."

Jason said it smiling, like the question bored him. Our friends had been teasing him all dinner about when he'd finally propose to me.

"Oh, and Savannah gets to be a bridesmaid. She's been lobbying me about it for months."

The emphasis landed so far off center that I honestly couldn't tell which part mattered more to him. Marrying me, or getting his childhood sweetheart a spot in my bridal party.

I took a sip of water.

"I have bridesmaids. My four college roommates. We made a pact before graduation: whoever's wedding it is, the others stand up with her."

Jason didn't even look at me. "So add one more."

"Can't. It's the four of them. That was the deal. No outsiders."

His jaw ticked. "Then just squeeze one in somewhere. Sav's never gotten to be a bridesmaid. Would it kill you to make her happy for once?"

Around the table, our friends had gone quiet.

They'd seen this show before. They never stepped in, because everyone knew how it ended: I'd grovel, Jason would give me the cold shoulder for two days like it cost him something, and we'd drift back together on schedule.

No one wanted to be the idiot who took it seriously.

This time, something in me had gone flat and hard.

"No. It's my wedding. I'm making the calls."

Jason crossed the room and stood over me. "And if I insist?"

I didn't answer.

I didn't have to. He could read it on my face.

"Fine. Then we're done!" His voice cracked on the way up. "Don't contact me again, Zoe."

The door slammed. Our friends sat there, marinating in the awkward.

I played host for another minute, and the teasing started right up.

"Look at her. Cool as anything. She's got Jason handled. Men are simple, honey. Go sweet-talk him tomorrow and it's fixed."

"Zo, you can't keep spoiling a man like that. The more you spoil them, the worse they get. This one's on you, you know."

"And that wedding date you two picked? Mediocre. I'll send you my cousin's wedding planner. She's the real deal. Not one couple she's done has ever gotten divorced."

I smiled and let all of it go.

I walked home the long way, alone.

Ten years of us kept playing on a loop.

We'd liked each other since high school. Made it official in college. Survived long distance. Survived moving in together.

Every stage of it had cracked somewhere. And every time, I was the one who taped it back together.

I used to ask myself why. Is loving someone supposed to make you this small?

Isn't love supposed to be two people carrying the same weight?

But every time I decided to leave, another voice showed up. Same question, every time:

If you quit now, doesn't that make ten years of everything you gave him one long joke?

Chapter 2

My feet carried me past the river without asking.

I used to call the Chicago River the River of Tears. It ran near our old school, and starting with breakup number one, it had witnessed pretty much every tear this relationship ever squeezed out of me.

Tonight it was just cold. Before I could work up anything poetic, the goosebumps beat me to it. I pulled my jacket tighter. Forget it. I could be heartbroken at home, where it was warm.

I turned around, and there was the wing spot.

Funny thing about that place. Once, after a fight with Jason, I'd stormed in and rage-ordered fifty wings. Couldn't swallow a single one past the lump in my throat.

The guy's cooking had seriously leveled up since then. I'd just come from a dinner and the smell still got me. I kept it modest this time. Twenty wings, in case history repeated itself.

It didn't. Twenty wings down, and I caught myself checking the menu again.

Mouth busy. Stomach full. The hollow feeling in my chest had quietly packed up and left.

At my own front door, I finally hesitated. We'd lived here together for years. Every corner of that small apartment had us in it.

Then I opened the door.

The trash bag sat there, full, tied off by no one, changed by no one. Empty soda bottles he'd never thrown out. Shoes kicked off wherever they'd landed.

And just like that, the anger outweighed the heartbreak. Only by a little.

Enough.

The fire dried my tears right up. I cleaned the whole place, then picked up my phone to archive a few Instagram posts, sparing my future self the scrolling. A Slack ping cut in. My boss, tagging me with notes on my proposal.

By the time I closed the file, the sky had gone pale at the edges.

Day one of the breakup had come and gone. Just like that.

So on that brand-new morning, while the feeling held, I blocked Jason. Every number. Every app. Everything.

Jason never came back to the apartment.

I knew what he was doing. He was waiting for me to fold.

Honestly, I assumed I would. I always had. Fold enough times and it stops feeling like losing.

But every time I picked up the phone, something more important cut in. A deadline. A client call.

One thing led to another, and somehow eight, nine days went by without me contacting him.

I had done the one thing I'd have sworn was impossible. And the agony I'd budgeted for never showed up.

Then came the early meeting. Our manager said this client was a big one. They needed someone on-site, embedded with their team until the project wrapped. A year and a half, minimum.

My hand was up before he finished the sentence.

He gave me a look. "Priority goes to whoever's single."

"I'm single."

Chapter 3

The whole conference room cracked up. In fairness, the saga of me and Jason was office legend by then.

But our manager asked around the table, and nobody else raised a hand.

Eighteen months away from headquarters, and your seat might not be there when you got back. Nobody wanted that math.

For me, the math was different. Distance from Jason, sure. A clear head, sure.

But mostly: the client was in San Diego.

The city I'd wanted for years.

Jason would never leave Chicago. Nowhere on earth was more comfortable than here, so he never went anywhere. He wouldn't even let me visit San Diego on vacation. Our friends joked that he was scared I'd go and never come back.

I used to just smile at that.

In the end, the job was mine. You can't force these things.

Before I left, my manager gave me the talk. Twice. "Do not bail on me. Whatever happens with you and that boyfriend of yours, you carry this for the full eighteen months."

I smiled. "Consider it done."

The first weeks in San Diego were a blur. Two straight weeks of overtime, no time to apartment-hunt, just me and the hotel room the client had booked.

By the third weekend, I finally came up for air and went out to see the place.

It matched the blogs and the travel spreads, mostly. But standing in it was different. Standing in it, the city had angles no camera had bothered to catch.

I'd chosen right. I could feel it in my shoulders.

Then my mom called. That one genuinely surprised me.

It had been over a year since our last conversation, which had ended the way they usually did.

My parents started the marriage campaign when I turned twenty-five. By twenty-eight it still hadn't produced results, so they went through my phone, found Jason's number, and called him themselves.

I can only imagine what got said. Jason didn't speak to me for a month afterward.

My mom has a lovely voice. I've never figured out how so many ugly, miserable sentences come out of it.

"You're not seriously waiting until thirty to get married? Dig up eight generations of this family and you won't find another specimen like you."

"So I'm broadening the family's horizons."

"I don't have time for your nonsense. Your sister saw on Instagram that you broke up with that Jason. Is it real this time? Used to be you two made up within days. I've been watching. Quiet for a while now. Clean break, finally?"

"If you have a point, get to it. I'm working."

"That temper. Exactly like your father's. No wonder the two of you can't share a room."

"Last chance before I hang up."

Her voice came rushing down the line. "Don't, don't. I just wanted to say, if you're free this weekend, your aunt found you a young man. Will you meet him? He works in the same city as you."

"Oh. Probably not the same city anymore. Forgot to tell you. I moved."

Chapter 4