I’m still at my customer service job, but I got a small raise, $5 per hour. Not life-changing, but it’s something. I learned how to do my own taxes through TurboTax. Turns out it’s not the complicated mystery James always made it out to be.
I had an awkward but revealing run-in with his mom at Target last week. She was buying storage bins in the same aisle as me. Instead of avoiding each other, we actually talked. She told me James tried to borrow money from them, but they refused.
“He needs to grow up,” she said.
Then she helped me pick out some cheap but nice-looking throw pillows for my studio apartment.
The apartment’s finally feeling like home. I got some plants from Home Depot. Two out of three are still alive. I learned to cook basic meals through HelloFresh and started going to Planet Fitness on weekends. Nothing fancy, just normal life stuff.
James still tries to contact me through new Instagram accounts, usually when he’s been drinking. Mostly stuff like:
“You’ll regret this.”
“You can’t make it without me.”
I just block and delete.
The funny part? I found his old password list in our shared Google Drive. Yes, he kept it in a document literally named Passwords. Didn’t do anything with it, just forwarded it to his sister Katie so she could tell him to change everything.
I met a guy named Matthew at work. Nothing serious. We just have lunch in the break room sometimes. He’s also recently divorced and gets why I’m not ready for anything real.