Girl, Can’t You Take a Rejection?

It’s time to put on those big girl pants.

Photo by Nel Mel on Unsplash

A week had passed. There were no texts or emails waiting for me, no matter how often I checked — or, at least, there were none from him.

I told myself he was just busy. Weren’t there weeks in the past where we had gone for days without speaking?

A month went by. I talked to people who knew both of us by association. They avoided my curious questions by changing the subject, but he was the weight hanging in the air of the room. It was like he was there — just watching everything happen from afar. That would have made sense: he was never a main player and seemed much more content by the sidelines.

I thought it was only a matter of time before we shared space again as fellow wallflowers. It was as if I had carved out a place for him to come back to whenever he decided to forego his no-show act.

I missed him — but, no matter how long I waffled over composing just the right message to be a breakthrough, I always ended up backspacing until there was no longer the temptation of a text to send.

Those weeks piled up into months. Soon I learned to forget to check my phone. What was the point, only to gear myself up for disappointment?