Zero Eight Zero Three

Four days ago would have been our six year anniversary. I didn’t realize it until yesterday in the middle of my shift— putting in the passcode to my laptop.

0803

It’s the pin to my debit card. The pin to my link card. The passcode to my laptop, my phone.

zero eight zero three zero eight zero three zero eight zero three zero eight zero three zero eight zero three zero eight zero three

I stopped for a moment after typing it in. I looked at the date on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. I laughed. I chuckled to myself in the AC filled storefront. Rolled my eyes. Pushed all of the thoughts that flooded my mind down into the depths of Monroe and Wabash. Further than the sub-basement. Below the sewers and the rats and the worms and maggots and dirt.

I have not allowed myself to grieve and mourn further. No more. Life goes on. And hell, I am doing so good without you. I am better without you. I feel like myself again. I am me. The me without you. Oh how I’ve missed her. How I’ve forgotten after all these years how it feels to be her. How beautiful it is to be a little Bambi again, figuring herself out.

I wondered if you had also forgotten the day, or maybe you remembered. Four months ago, I was dreading that godforsaken day— the piercing reminder that we were so close to making it a little over half a decade together. I was broken down in dreadful anticipation. But the day came and went, just another ordinary day.

zero eight zero three

And of course, my mind could not let me block it out forever. How could she? So the reminder resurfaced once again. The memories, betrayal, pain, and heartbreak. They all crawled- rushed up and down my body. As always, it began within the void of my sternum. The poison of wondering what could have been. What we could have been. What we would have planned for our six year anniversary. Maybe we would have been in Stanford. Or gone camping. It could have been a weekend trip. Maybe you would have finally gotten me a promise ring, or proposed.

I almost forgot about the engagement rings I found in your Safari browser that horrid morning four months ago. I looked at that page in disgust; scoffed. Because alongside that comical discovery, I found the evidence that my intuition was screaming at me to inevitably find on your pandora’s box of a phone. See, I still can’t fathom how one can pretend and lie so easily and earnestly. How one can change so horrendously, into the worst version of themselves, a version the You I met six years ago would have despised.

You’ve never been good at honesty. Sometimes I think I should have picked up on it six years ago. But how could I have? Little Bambi was enamored with the zero eight zero three of it all. As if it were headlights of a bright future together. I suppose those headlights could only illuminate for so long. If only I had gotten a warranty.