The Ex Is Always the Prettier Version of You

Saturday

Sitting on the tram in a subdued mini skirt I’ve had for years, looking like a slutty schoolgirl. Everyone on this tram suddenly seems very happy. My asscheeks stick to the brown faux leather of the dirty seats, sweat gathering on my face and dripping down like melting ice crystals, my pores crying for a fresh breeze. I don’t feel like throwing up this time, since I saw him two days ago; on Thursday he texted me to come Netflix and chill, like they say. Anyway. I text him that I’ve left. He replies, are you gonna be here on time, already doubting me, but I can’t blame the man. I’ve let him wait every single rendezvous so far. And now he’s extra anal about everything because we absolutely have to catch this train to rural-nowhere-town, but his mom forgot to confirm whether she hid the key somewhere and she’s not replying to his texts. She did confirm when she dropped off the dog at his house this morning, but he was still half asleep.

He has the dog with him. I greet her first, her beautiful onyx calf eyes ecstatic to see me, the feeling mutual. I give her hugs all over and she wags her beautiful tail and jumps on me for more pets when I try to get up. I turn to him and give him a little smooch on the lips. I decide that’s enough for now. The town is a 33-minute train ride from the city. The train arrives at our platform at 2:14pm. I put my legs on his in the train and read Sartre, while he’s still jittery about the fact that the key might not be there, even though I tell him it definitely is. I wonder what makes him so nervous. I say we can go back if she forgot you were visiting today, and he replies, I just want proof, so I don’t invite you to a trip that isn’t gonna happen. I tell him the keys are gonna be there, in the secret spot, as usual, and there’s nothing to worry about. We arrive at 2:48pm. We walk straight downhill for twenty minutes and find a little brasserie. We go there for a drink. He orders a beer and I have two glasses of wine on an empty stomach. I ask him to split and he says no, this is my little gift to you for coming with me on vacation. For the first time he asks me out on a proper dinner, a date, as it’s called. He goes to ask the barman if they serve food in the evening and I think he’s finally getting romantic, maybe his heart does burn like mine. It doesn’t, it doesn’t, idiotic girl. But the breadcrumbs he gives me are made of gold. The cook is on vacation this week. Merde.

We finally arrive at his grandmother’s estate. I take my shoes off at the door and walk up the few stairs into the living room, which isn’t really a room, there are no doors, just one big open space with a mezzanine for the office and the kitchen tucked in the corner and a sliding door straight out to the garden. He shows me around. Where we’ll sleep, the other rooms, each one with its own bathroom. The first thing I do is check the mattress and lie down for one minute. Then we relocate to the garden for a smoke, it’s beautiful outside, the garden is big and beautiful as Versailles, blue blooded people always have big gardens you want to fuck in. The sunshine makes the red maple tree turn golden. I notice the spots of dried grass, looking like angel hair caused by intense heatwaves we’ve been having all summer. If this societal degeneracy continues we’ll burn like Sodom and Gomorrah. We hadn’t had as much time as taking a breath and getting used to the new surroundings when the dog starts barking, we take the few steps down to the entrance and his grandmother and aunt are there for a visit. Lost in translation, his aunt thought the house was empty. I’m horrified, he can’t even label me his girlfriend and here I am meeting the matriarch and his mother’s sister. I kiss them hello and Beau asks if she can bring us to the supermarket, it’s pretty far on foot, he says, I then realized I haven’t seen a single bus stop in this weird suburbia on our way here. She does so, gladly. We arrive at the supermarché, he’s deciding the food and I let him take care of me. I try not to feel too anxious about it. I’m here for a reason, which one I don’t know but who knows, it’ll show itself if I just let him do his thing. I decide to get a drink to help with the knot in my stomach. Drifting through the aisles of the supermarket, bewildered over which wine to buy. I stand there until I see a couple taking a Chardonnay off the shelf, with full confidence as if that’s their regular, so I decide that one must be good and take the same bottle, with less confidence. We drive back home and the aunt decides to drink an aperitif with us and then go on their way. She smokes as well, I was so concerned with how they would view me if I decided to smoke my cigarette before they left but thankfully she likes a cigarette between her fingers. We sit around the garden table and talk about trivial things, about her apartment in the city, I’m starting to write boring things down… anyway. I hate that I so desperately want him to like me, I need him to like me. In the garden there’s a pond, the place is full of dragonflies; one finds his way inside and can’t find his way back to the pond. When it’s getting dark out we decide to start cooking, I cut the potatoes, the princess beans while he’s grilling the sausages. He’s a good cook. I hate it. We eat dinner outside and I keep giving little treats to the dog, sweet child. He smiles at me and says he’s never seen me eat this much, I still have leftovers. Is my vanity that obvious? I’m drunk and I feel a horrible migraine coming up. I ask him if I can go lay down, he says yes of course and comes with me to the room, lays next to me for a while and when I wake up I still have a wine and heat-induced torturing headache, I feel such a bratty bitch for not being more pleasant but when he comes out of the bathroom he also says he felt bad in his stomach, both suffering, the only thing we’re synchronised with together. Hashtag dating goals. He comes and lays down again next to me, I tell him I might know a way to get rid of my horrible migraine. And tongue-fucking turns into dick-sucking and he says, I might come fast the first time. I ask, in my high-pitched voice, why? He says because there’s sexual tension built up. I think: we haven’t seen each other for two days. Then I’m on my belly, ass up, screaming in the pillow, I swear this is not the reason I keep coming back, I swear. We go to bed, talk about a friend of ours, she wants to split her tongue. I tell him she’s been through some bad friendships and she told me she’s going to do it with a friend of hers, I also tell him women have this desire to make themselves less attractive, for the scene they’re in, peer pressure, men. I say this is a societal problem, we all used to do it. He says he’s grown out of that part of his life. I tell him you don’t grow out of it, you carry it. Every phase you didn’t finish, you drag into the next. And then you’re thirty-two, bonesmashing.

Sunday

9:04 am. I wake up with the most repulsive hangover I’ve had in years, having done everything to avoid it. Nothing is much worse than a fermented grape juice hangover. And the migraine has traveled all down to my neck and the light I still cannot stand. I go outside and he’s cooking breakfast, for us. He asks me how many eggs I want, just one, I say, shaking from low blood sugar. I tell him, I still don’t feel good. Oh, because I just wanted to take a walk with you and the dog. Fuck. I start playing with my hair and look down. I don’t think I can, I don’t feel good. Look, I’m even shaking, my sugar levels are too low, I drank on an empty stomach yesterday… and he worriedly says to go lie down again, says he hates that I feel like shit. I go back to the room and lie down. During my nap a nightmare occurs in the same room, I wake up and he has found my substack. I panic, he’s breaking up with me but also trying to start fresh, together, really wants this analysed. It was so scary because I thought it truly happened, he was grabbing me by the shoulders and yelling why did you do this, why couldn’t you just go with it like a normal woman. Fucking horrifying. I wake up and it’s almost five pm. Beau? I decide to get up and I already feel resurrected. I run through the house to the garden, where he sits and I ask him if he’s angry at me. He’s terribly confused, it’s just a question, and he replies no. Okay, then it was just a nightmare. He’s sitting there drawing the maple tree. He says he’s not done though, since the light has changed a great deal. He’s gonna finish it tomorrow, says he tries to capture summer but accidentally autumn. Which I find funny since this male is the personification of autumn, cold to the touch, lots of rainy days but the sun is still fighting it, you just have to have your lucky days. We go to the garden table and sit. The dog caught a tiny mole, he tells me. I’ve seen it lying there, wondering what it was before. I wonder if its family is searching for him, if they’ve called the authorities. The poor sucker is dead though, nothing left to do. Beau goes quiet, his mom will be visiting. He puts on some music to draw out the absolute despair on his face. He takes the garden chair and goes to sit in the grass, soaking up the last sun. He’s unreachable, always. He decides when he gets close and when you have to step back. His mom comes, and does an aperitif with us, I can get to know her but I must be truthful, I feel so anxious I might start shaking and crying like a dog. She’s very pretty. She has white blonde, short hair. She mentions my long hair and says it’s beautiful, says she’s always had long hair as well. Her toenails are painted the right colour, light blue, perfect down to her jewelry, the pink bracelet she’s wearing so mundane yet so elegant, perfectly picked out for her. It’s impossible not to notice every tiny detail about her because every detail makes her. After his dear mother leaves we start to cook together, me on dishes, him on the stove, then we switch. Everything smells good, we’re doing it together, listening to Bladee…. In these moments I see him, what he constantly tries to hide, and I love it, it completely lights my soul. The cooking plate is too hot. We watch Law & Order while eating fish sticks with potatoes and princess beans, a very aristocratic dinner, you see. We cooked together. I sit between his legs explaining the Bechdel test to him. And after, he’s reading Goethe on the couch while I’m still in between his legs on the ground reading Bataille. This is SEX. We go into the shower together, his marvelous idea, and he asks to have sex, I decline, tell him how small the shower is and that shower sex is much more a burden than a pleasure. I ask him, did you never have shower sex, you’re such a big slut? Genuinely confused, I get out of the shower, take a random blue and yellow bathrobe, he mentions the bathrobe is from his mother. We walk back to the bedroom, had hard sex twice. I never made much noise when men fucked me, apparently I just got primal about it when turning twenty-five… nothing to do with him, I hope. While fucking me from behind, he pushed too much air into my vagina, which leads to me harassing him and asking him why he’d do that to me, I will never admit my body makes that sound on its own accord, my cheeks are burning up with shame, he comes and I’m still going, he keeps cleaning himself up and doesn’t answer, this man doesn’t care. I stop doing damage control for my vagina and just relax. I’m out of my camel yellows and ask him to roll my post-sex cigarette, I hate rollies, but this one tastes like love-induced cancer.

Monday

Woke up, morning sex. He moves through it dutifully now, the sexual tension worn down to habit, in nothing but merely a few days. Weird how fast that seems to happen with him. Ate breakfast, bio peanut butter on bread. Went on a walk with the dog. I leave a day early; he decides to stay another day. All alone. I tell him I feel like a cunt for leaving early. He doesn’t get me, I’m just being honest. I wonder what he’s looking for. I’m not a bad girl, only towards myself. He keeps saying people can change, but I still see the pain you’ve caused in your face. I guess it’s just me, I’m the insecure one. I love you but it can’t be said, and every time we try to start, something gets in the way. I keep laughing it off. This is not something I can talk to you about, or with our friends. Why do you come back and then act like we’re dead. Unsolvable, forever into you. I want to know how it feels to mean something to you. How can this heartbreak still strangle me. I feel trapped, by my own desire for him. I am in a cage, like a case study. Nothing I do will ever make a change.

We go on a walk with the dog and the scenery is beautiful, autumn certainly is almost here, the mud and the damp air, the fallen rain forming into puddles. The dog looking for more moles to catch, maybe the wife, leaving the tiny mammal children helplessly to fend for themselves.

During the walk he took a sneaky picture of me, I was horrified like one is when someone takes a candid photo of you with a bad phone camera and no fresh face, I didn’t even have the time to put on makeup. He often says I should stop wearing makeup. For example: he has a bad habit of inviting me when I’m still in bed, not showered, yesterday’s mascara leaking under my eyes. He invites me out of the blue, when he’s bored, to hang out or go out, he always asks me why he has to wait so long, when I answer I’m just getting ready, he stays kind, but annoyingly so. He loves to joke and say, make yourself pretty for me. Looking at his exes whenever I’m alone and brooding, but actually spiraling, they seem so naturally beautiful. I started fixating on one of his exes, she has this perfect golden blonde hair, that falls perfectly like dried leaves from a tree during autumn, I’m genuinely so glad this woman has a boyfriend now, not that I find myself ugly but women are beautiful and for some reason exes are always the hottest on the list. I met his ex once, during a rave, she talked to me about him just right after they broke up, I was his ex then, funny how I didn’t feel like the beautiful ex. Said she missed him while smiling like a confused child, said she never could reach him, I wholeheartedly agreed, then she strutted away, unfazed, with her beautiful curls and her Levi’s star denim, the same one I had in white. I’ve never been able to forget her since.

We start talking about his sex offender friend. Initially when I told him I didn’t wanna say what happened between his friend and a person I know, he said, I don’t want that my girlfriend and my best friend have a secret from me. It’s funny how he seems to almost weaponise the word I want to hear the most. He asks for devoted, cultist-brained obedience when he cannot even ask me to be his girlfriend. I ask him if he talked to him, has thought about what I said. We have a discussion about this. And we let it be, spoken to just leave it, every party in the story wants to leave it, so let’s fucking leave it. Understood. I’ve wanted to let it die inside me, before you pulled the words straight out of my larynx. He invited me on this trip, told me it’s the perfect place to finally paint my part for Eve, he’s painted a maple tree instead. I don’t blame him, he’s rusty. I don’t know why he feels like this. I want to make him feel more… comfortable. But I’m not his mother, I don’t have to soothe him to feel good in a relationship, I can’t put him on the tit when he’s feeling rejected.

After that conversation I decide to go home, it’s grey outside and I want to be alone, most of the time I’m on autopilot, I’m a machine made from flesh and blood. I have died a thousand times since my mom decided to birth me, and needed recharging ever since. I need my bed. I need to walk naked in the flat, my own fluffy cinnamoroll house slippers, my playboy pillow, myself.

He walks me to the train station, which is pretty far away, and I thank him, the train arrives and he says see you later, girlfriend. I say I’m gonna miss your mass, he apparently heard me wrong and his response was I won’t, if I do I’ll text you. I step on the train, decide not to ponder on it. While editing this I brood about it, why he would say such a thing if he thought I said I’ll miss you, that’s rude, right? And this is also one of the reasons I publish my diary entries. I’m too retarded to understand my own undoing, and how to stop it. The woman logging her own undoing.

Oh diary, this reminds me I have a dark secret to tell you, I sucked him off, knees digging in the dry grass, in the dark blue night and the sky was so starry out in the countryside. I shouldn’t tell more, no, I shan’t.

Tuesday

Walking through the street and it smells like pancakes and the death of my innocence. I’m so happy to be back in the city, I haven’t thought about Beau, actually I think about him every night before I go to sleep, I think about us fucking in various positions. Last time he slapped my ass and I said he can do it harder and he said he doesn’t know if he likes that. I’m home, have to kick the door a little for it to open, I wonder how many neighbours complain to their loved one about the noise I make every day. I go lay down. Hot roommate scraped the last of the kief and gave it all to me because I was feeling sick. It made me feel better, and I thanked him. We decide to hang out and watch Fargo. Kirsten Dunst comes on, her white earmuffs on the bus, and I tell him: she doesn’t age a bit, seventeen forever, her porcelain skin with no cracks. An angel on the screen, in every role. Those are the people who deserve to be famous. Not the TikTok and Instagram influencers who start injecting things into their bodies the second a big paycheck lands. Just normal people, incredible and talented, who do their craft and then are normal about it.

I flirt with him but the flirting is harmless. As harmless as two good friends on a swing set, I tell myself.

The movie ends and we take another hit of the bong, hot roommate puts on Fargo season 2 episode 3, I go to pee and when I close my eyes I see green and blue, orange 70’s floral wallpaper breathing like I’m on acid. When I open my eyes I look around and see the pile of clothing I need to wash and I don’t live in some dream inside my head.

Getting dressed to get cigarettes, striped off-the-shoulder shirt and my extreme low-rise jeans, everyone can see my thong and there’s nothing I can do about it, so I put a Brandy Melville hoodie over it, grab my vintage Guess bag and strut to the bodega. No bra, the bodega guy will love to see me come in. It’s raining outside. I look at the weather app. It seems autumn came early this year, autumn is a man and I’ve always known it. At the bodega the digital lottery screen goes from win a gazillion euros to a missing man and child, the same missing person alert I saw in the train on my way to Beau’s grandmother’s house.

Hot roommate says he has to leave at two for the dentist. I’m on the bed and I feel my body drop joint by joint, like a marionette whose puppeteer has cut every string. I try to hide it and still I sigh, my mouth pulls down, my eyes roll everywhere until he catches me and asks what’s wrong. Nothing, I say, I just urgently need to go to the dentist too. This week, he says, we’ll sort it out. I don’t want to sort it out. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want everyone to come tend to me. I want to lie in a bed made of gold and call a dentist to come to my golden bed, dream under anaesthesia of a threesome with Adam and Eve, want it done now without moving a muscle, the dentist gets paid in gold when I wake up. With a strong enough set of teeth I can probably bite a piece off. I want to decompose here until I die and still be the life of the party, a life I won’t have any regrets about.

6:16 pm, watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills while impatiently waiting for the plug to arrive. At 7pm he arrives an hour too late, right on time for a dealer. The weed is green and purple, so vividly amethyst purple. I take a hit from the neon green bong and feel my body turning into angel dust, the bed turning into heaven, my tiny blob of a soul waving at a godlike figure. The only parts of my body allowed to come with me are my nerve endings and my clit.

I smoke another bowl and think, I just want a big fat lawn I can mow until the sun goes down. And when it does, the sprinklers come on and make me damp, golden hour on bronze skin. Big beautiful bust galloping, cowboy boots, lipgloss in my brown curly hair, while someone’s husband is chained to the bed.

22:30. Brushed my teeth, braided my hair, naked under the sheets, my whole pillow smelling of lavender. The last summer heat of August coming through the window. And while I fantasize myself to sleep with sexual pleasure, I hear a drive-by shooting. Three pops to welcome me back to the city. There it is, at last.

Wednesday

I hate waking up. Rape me sideways, another day playing adult. Remember when every colour was more vibrant, the unexplainable things you came across as a child, believing in fairies and folklore creatures, to not believing in anything anymore. Not the government, the people who lead our world, our neighbours, not even yourself. From your parents telling you not to talk to strangers, to walking to the corner store at 8pm with your keys between your fingers and a stiletto knife in your boot. From princess movies promising you have the magic in you, that you’ll become everything you want, to fleeing a country at war, leaving your fatherland for the rest of your life, everything you’ve ever known and loved. Moving to a country that promises you the dream, while the dream is slaving away in cubicles for a suit, a shareholder, a god you’ve never seen.

7:49pm. Hot roommate and I are lying in bed watching Pain & Gain. He’s eating his rancid pre-made macaroni while I’m looking at the hottest women on screen. Johnny Wu comes on the screen and I tell hot roommate that I hate this actor, he’s the ugliest Asian I’ve ever seen. It’s like he’s cursing me out with his face. He laughs and says even uglier than Bobby Lee? Yes, definitely.

11:30 pm. I take my sleeping medication and lay my sachet next to me on my pillow. I don’t get up to brush my teeth, currently typing this with one eye open. That is the state. Right as I felt inner peace I started thinking about a specific moment during sex with Beau, where he pushed too much air into my vagina, and it came out. Nothing shameful, and yet I feel nothing but the urge to blow my brains out.

00:10 am. Trying to fall asleep but failing, the pestering thoughts of different ways Beau might break up with me. I don’t want him to cut through the umbilical cord. But who am I but a lovemaxxing fool. This is reality, dumb girl.

2 am. Woke up briefly, got the munchies, and I have this rancid ritual when I’m binging: to soak as many Biscoff cookies as possible in a mug of milk and eat them. Hot roommate is snoring next to me while I’m drinking soggy Biscoff. I’m gonna fast like a monk, find inner peace while starving myself. This is the only downside to weed, also the reason for not taking antidepressants, the pounds.

Hot roommate stressing, he just came off the phone with his mom talking about money, he’s been applying for jobs, going to interviews, just this week a company has to decide between him and another candidate. He knows the answer after the weekend. I’ve also done some of my grey, crazy-making administrative stuff.

Thursday

Sitting in bed while editing, Beau messages me, seen on notification screen: wish you stayed another day. I manifest the power of ghosting, the little power I have over him, and how good it feels to leave him on read for a while, does he care? I’ve no clue, but it certainly makes me feel triumphant, plus he also posted a painting of me on his story once again. I’m not looking into anything he does anymore but I will be thinking about it all day.

Had to get cigarettes, started flirting with the guy at the bodega, in my broken but sultry French I giggle and smile and shake my hips, wave back “Bonne journée” “merci vraiment” after we already said our fast customer-service goodbye. I love making men confused. I walk outside and the strong breeze is like I’m coming out of my mum the first time again and breathing air. I hear the already golden leaves crunch with every step.

Hot roommate just got off the phone with his mother, I notice how every single person’s voice changes when talking to their mother, especially in the greetings and goodbyes, the voice softens as if you’re a child again. Even I, who doesn’t have a mother, talk to her like that.

Friday

9:04 am. I wake up with the most annoying weed hangover. Beau messaged me and posted a painting of me on his story once again. I’m not looking into anything he does anymore but I will be thinking about it all day.

Beau sends me messages about his commission, the band not happy with his work. He’s pissed, whole paragraphs. Think: if I would do that, he’d find me utterly annoying. I’d never dare to send him whole pages of frustration or malaise. I’d be mortified to even start typing. I’ve finally gotten comfortable in the masochistic silence I give him, though I never know what’s expected of me. A chameleon. Manipulative in a certain way, sure. But I’m a good girl.

Maybe I got it all wrong though. Don’t take my word for it.

Meanwhile, his friend, someone I know from high school, starts texting me. I tell him I just got back from a few days in the countryside, with Beau, in his grandmother’s townhouse. Cute, he says. How long have you two been dating? For dating, too long. Why, he says. Nothing. Five months now, give or take. Haha, cute. Just hypothetically, how long does it take you to make it official with someone you’re dating? Different, he says. Could be weeks, could be years. Is he protecting Beau? Why, he asks. What about you? I don’t know. That’s why I asked.

Saturday

Slept all day, just woke up and feel utterly disgusting. The weed putting me in a half-coma, and the first thing I see when I wake up is that Beau messaged me a reel. The reel said when you hear a rumor about you that is so untrue you don’t even know how to defend yourself. I say what rumor did you hear, boy.

Woke during the witching hour, this has been happening for days. Hearing weird things on the balcony, maybe I was burned at the stake in another life and it’s visiting me, the other life.

Lying in bed, I numb myself and maladaptive daydream until my head hurts from lying down so long. It’s an addiction. I keep thinking about what I feel for him, what he feels for me. He makes it so I’m scared to love him, perhaps that’s his idea all along. And I stand there like a confused child. Dating, girlfriend, dating. Even his friends started to DM me, people I went to the same high school with, being surprisingly nice to me. I don’t know why. He tells some we’re in a relationship. I wonder what he tells his twin brother. I’ve slept next to his mom’s dog an uncountable amount of times now. What are you still brooding about? What do you need me for? What kind of vanity-love is this? I want passion, I want you devotee-brained. I’m not honest myself, especially not about my feelings. I don’t know if it’s pure love or something I’m trying to recreate, something I could have had. I’m going to choose to lie to myself and just enjoy what we have.

-Love, Klara

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