Page 49 of Love Harder

I very bluntly told him on the phone why would I want to see him when he couldn’t make the effort to see me. He said heunderstood that. It was evident in his voice that he didn’t like confrontation. To be fair, he listened and reasoned with me until I hung up, frustrated with how he thought this was okay.

I could hear his friends in the background and I liked that he didn’t shy away from speaking to me in front of them. I wasn’t a secret and I know I wasn’t when I saw one of his friends had viewed my socials. He had spoken about me to at least one of them.

But that didn’t excuse his behavior.

The next day, I sent a message:

Why do you continue to make plans only to cancel?

He replied within seconds:

I’m not canceling deliberately. I couldn’t make it Sunday so I tried my best to make it work Monday. Argh please just understand. I will have time this weekend. I’m sorry okay x

He sounded genuine…again.

So I said okay. And tried one last time…

That night, he sent so many voice notes saying he didn’t mean to be frustrating, and he’s just trying to be honest, and it’s backfiring. He didn’t want to make me angry and just ended up making me angry with him anyway.

He said I was to trust him. That he wanted to come over, and that he couldn’t emphasize how badly he wanted to see me. He couldn’t wait to see me when it happened, and it would. He promised.

Blah, blah…

Again, I retreated, ignoring him when he continued to chase, but when it was my birthday a few days later, he sent me a message that made me want to throw my phone out the windowbecause I was slightly impressed that he had remembered my birthday.

Happy birthday, babyyyy. I hope you have the best birthday today, and I’ll have a surprise for you this weekend

He checked in throughout the day, asking what I was up to.

I gave him the bare minimum, but he just wouldn’t quit.

It was his birthday two days later. So I sent a birthday message.

He insisted he wanted to see me Saturday, which was his actual birthday. I knew this wasn’t going to happen, but he swore it would.

I asked what he wanted to do for his birthday, and he said he wanted to do me.

All the things a fuckboy would say.

Saturday came, and he did what I knew—he asked if we could catch up Sunday instead.

By this stage, I was so used to disappointment, I agreed. It’s incredible the things we just accept after a while. He wore me down to the point of not expecting anything to stop myself from being disappointed.

But Sunday came, and, my friends, guess what happened? So did he—finally!

Surprised?

That makes us both.

It had been over three months since I saw him, and when he messaged me late that night, promising me he was coming, I believed him. I don’t know why I did. You’ve read our history. But I think he knew if he canceled one more time, then we were done; like for real this time.

He messaged when he was on the way.

This was really happening, and there was no way I could prepare my heart for what was about to come.

The moment I saw him standing at my front door, I knew he was worth the wait because, my god, our chemistry was rampant.

We kissed how I thought we would.