“Hi, Matt, where are you?” I asked, walking along Seventy-second Street and Central Park West.
“I’m in the park at Seventy-second Street,” he said. “Counting down ’til I can see you, beautiful. Where’re your coordinates?”
“Oh, I’m a few blocks away,” I lied, fighting fire with fire. “I’ll meet you by the Bethesda Fountain.”
I approached the park, catching him in my sights but always staying a few steps behind to spy on him. Turning the tables empowered me, and made me feel like he was the prey this time. Fine, he was cute, but now, after everything, I thought he looked almost too hot, like a fake soap star. I wanted to watch him for a few minutes to see him in action. Was he like a predator, looking at girls to see who his next victim would be? No, not so far.
But then: There it was. When no one was looking, he casually bent down over the John Lennon memorial circle and picked up one of the many bouquets of flowers. And then I knew. Every time he brought roses for me, they’d been snatched from that monument for the dead Beatle. That little turd.
I arrived at Bethesda Fountain, practically gagging that I’d let this scumbag, this manipulative centipede, burrow into my life so deeply. But with Meryl Streep’s aplomb, I brightened when I saw him and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
“These are for you,” he said, handing me the pilfered buds. “How’s my girl?”
I could have said I was terrible, considering I had been fooled by a con artist, but I contained it. My roommates and I decided that if I called him out on his various falsehoods that he’d just walk off and do it again to some other unsuspecting fool. And why do that when we had a perfect one lined up for the taking?
“Listen, Matt—” I said, knowing full well any sentence that began with “look” or “listen” meant the relationship was going the way of the Titanic. “I’ve been thinking—”
“Is everything okay, sweetness?” he purred, stroking my cheek.
“You know, this is all happening so fast and to be totally honest, while I think you’re great, I feel that I need to focus on work stuff. I’m not in a good place for a relationship right now. It’s not you—it’s me,” I said, almost stifling a cackle.
Considering I’d just lobbed the most insulting breakup initiative ever—the “it’s not you, it’s me” refrain—he was taking it quite well. He didn’t seem to care at all, in fact.
I continued. “I need to stay on my work path right now and I’m starting fresh at school next month—”
“Hey, sweetheart, I totally understand,” he said soothingly, giving me a hug. Gee, that was easy. “I hope we can stay friends. No hard feelings.”
“No.”
A calmer breakup had never occurred in history, and as he walked off among the sunny crowds of park revelers, with his stolen “Imagine” flowers, I was happy to have him out of my life.