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Stage 1: Denial
You lock yourself in your room and refuse to come out. Not until he comes and begs you
to take him back. Even though he broke your heart when he left, you will Take Him
Back. You will because you Love Each Other even if he can’t see that right now. Men are
stupid. They don’t know what they have until they have lost it forever. You smile smugly
when you think of the moment he will realize he can’t live without you and would come
crawling back, groveling on his knees. You’ll act nonchalant even though you know you
forgive him. But you’ll let him grovel and treat him like shit for a while. To get back at
him. After all he broke your heart. It’s enough of a miracle that you don’t want to break
his face. You promised him that you will be Together Forever and that is how it will be.
Men, you sigh. They need to act crazy and rebellious at some point being afraid of
commitment. But he will come back because you Love Each Other and will be Together
Forever.
Stage 2: Anger
Days pass. Slowly. You wait for him to show up at your doorstep. You imagine him
looking like crap: tears streaming down his face, wearing sweatpants (which he only did
when he was really sad, like that one time when his favorite team lost some football
match). You remember you had made him hot chocolate that day, complete with
marshmallows arranged in a smiley face. You had caressed him to sleep. You know you
have been a good girlfriend. So what if you insist on being in touch all the time and
saying ’I love you’ after every conversation. You read in a self help book on relationships
that saying ’I love you’ every time you talked to your other half was a Positive
Reinforcement and many couples take it for granted which is wrong because the other
person Needs To Know. White hot anger lashes inside you. Why hasn’t that bastard come
crawling to your doorstep? You dress up every day just so you are ready for when that
happens. Looking your best in a hot, sultry dress that would make him want you back that
very moment. You even prepare everything you will say to him and replay the whole
scenario in your head again and again. But that son of a bitch does not show up. You
check your Blackberry and Facebook like a manic everyday for his pathetic, I-want-you-
back messages. Nothing. You curse him out loud until you are out of breath and curse
words. You want to Break His Face. You make a mental note of it. You imagine yourself
punching his face hard, your knuckles crunching against his perfect jaw line. That would
teach him a lesson. You chuckle to yourself. The thought makes you happy. Happy but in
a sad way. Your phone rings. You look around panic stricken trying to locate it. ‘Stupid
phone, STUPID phone,’ you think and spot in on the coffee table. Your eyes lock on it.
Your senses fail to work in the panic that it will stop ringing. There is a sofa between you
and the coffee table. With your eyes locked on the phone, you jump over the sofa.
Common sense fails you as you go sailing over it, heading straight towards the table.
Laws of physics come into play. You crash down on the table. A whoosh and a bam! The
table screeches halfway across the room on the parquet floor. The phone stops ringing. A
disoriented you checks the call log and it’s not him. It’s Mary. Bloody Mary! You shout
like a lunatic at the guilty phone.
Stage 3: Bargaining
More days pass. Slowly and painfully. No BBM. No Facebook message. You begin to
wonder what you did to make him go away. If only you could get him back, you’ll never
let him go and do everything he wanted. You’ll be perfect. If only God would bring him
back. You curl up in a ball and lie in a fetal position on your sofa for days. Thoughts of
ways to get him back whiz in your mind. Images of you calling him. Images of you going
to his apartment. Images of you bumping into him at his favorite bar. The images rush in
your mind faster and faster until they merge and don’t make sense anymore. You think of
how you will never act clingy again if he just came back. Before he left that was his lame
excuse. ‘You’re too clingy, it’s suffocating’. You thought he was joking at first and then
when he left, you were sure he’d come running back within a few days. You decide that
you will never be clingy again. You Google ‘Clingy Girlfriends’ and read up on it. There
are articles saying things like ‘give him his space’ or ‘do not call to check up on him all
the time’. You make a mental note of everything. You will Give Him His Space. You
will Not Call Him All The Time. You even decide to limit the I-love-yous to once a day.
That will show him that you are not a Clingy Girlfriend. So you decide you won’t call
him. Or beg him to take you back. This works for a while and then you give up. You call
him. Oh hell, you call him. Again and again. You leave angry messages and sad
messages and I-will-never-be-clingy-again messages. But he never answers or replies.
Not. Even. Once.
Stage 4: Depression
You have lost count of the days. You venture out of your apartment to stock up on
groceries. As soon as you step out you realize it is a big mistake. The world is going on
without you as if nothing has happened. Shiny, happy people going on about their happy
lives. You see couples. Everywhere. On the streets and the benches. In Love. What fools,
you think and laugh to yourself. A sad, private joke. A guy and a girl stuck to each other
on a bench make you want to take a crowbar and pry them off each other. Tell them it’s
no use and they’ll only end up heartbroken. What fools, you think again but this time the
laughter does not come. More couples at the cash register. It is like the whole world is
made up of couples. Happy. Together. Mocking you. Ha-ha-ha, poor little woman buying
groceries alone. Ha-ha-ha. You want to break their face but instead give them the stink
eye. Mary comes to check on you after you fail to return her calls and voicemails. She
brings a box of chocolates and wine. The Cure For A Broken Heart, she says. You get
drunk with her and talk in loud voices that seem to come from far away rather than from
your mouth to the ears. At night, after Mary has gone you lie alone in your bed. The wine
has loosened up your brain and the part that you were trying to seal, opens up suddenly.
All the memories of HIM. That sick bastard who left you wallowing in misery. You cry.
The liquid mix of tears and mascara puddles up on your duvet. Staining it. You tear open
the box of chocolates and stuff them in your mouth. The Cure For a Broken Heart. The
chocolate melts in your mouth and disappears. One after another until the box is empty.
Your heart is still not cured but you feel a bit better. But only just a bit. You cry yourself
to sleep. And that’s the only way you know how to sleep for days.
Stage 5: Acceptance
Over the next few days, Mary drops by more frequently. She even drags you out to ‘The
Dragon’ to have a girl’s night out. Singing karaoke in awful voices and ‘wooing’ out loud
as though the bunch of you were high school girls rather than grown up, college women.
You giggle pointlessly and dance with strange men. You get so drunk that the lights at
the bar blur into each other. The sounds heighten and the music thuds at your brain,
wanting in. You do not think about him that night. The first time that he is not the first
and only thing on your mind. Mary tells you that you don’t need him. You make a mental
note of it. You Don’t Need Him. You’re glad that summers are almost over and you’ll be
going back to college in a week. You Don’t Need Him. There is Plenty of Fish in The
Sea. You’ll go fishing when college starts.
Written By: Anum Imran (LUMS)
