This is the story that will forever stay with me. It is the story of the first guy that I ever dated right out of my divorce. For the respect of his privacy, I have changed his name to Prick..it is just so fitting for his personality, it just seemed to stick.
I first heard of Prick when I moved to Austin to open the restaurant I work at. He was training at another location in Dallas and would be moving to the Austin stores in a matter of weeks. When he arrived, the gm at that store told me "oh my God Sarah, this guy is hot!!" My (at the time) husband and I made our way to the north location where he was working, to pick up some product and met him for the first time. She was right, he WAS hot. I didn't think about it much at first, but he told me months later that it was at that moment he saw me that he figured there was going to be something between us. (yes, Prick was very telepathic,...even he could tell well ahead of time he was an asshole)
It was not too long after that moment, that I was told Prick would be moving to my store to become my assistant manager. He was a great worker, cleaned the restaurant like a health inspector and didn't complain about anything. It wasn't until one day we were stocking the cooler that I asked about his wife and he confided in me that he and his wife were presently separated and having problems. He had two young boys and was dealing with a lot of issues at the moment. It was the first time I had met someone that had young children that was contemplating divorce and immediatley I was attracted to our common ground. It had nothing to do with the fact that I liked him, I would not find out I was attracted to Prick until months later. Prick and I became fast friends, talking about our marital issues, what our kids were doing at that time in their lives and how hard it was to be in a relationship that was falling apart. Prick was great at work too, if I had someone call in sick, he would be the first to jump in and help me. If I was closing, he would ironically show up right before we closed and help me and the staff clean up. Call me naive, but I really did not consider myself attracted to him yet. I was emerged in the devestation of my own marriage falling to pieces that no part of me actually was interested in another person. BUT...I did feel an emotional attachment emerge between him and I based on our common issues at heart. It was amazing, but everything I was going through, he was going through as well. I would later find out this was part of his plan...and I fell right into the place he wanted me to.
As the weeks went by, and my marriage became a fragment of what it was, I found that divorce was what I wanted. My ex moved out and I waded through the muddy waters of what is the beginning of your singlehood and the end of your marriage. I was extremely fragile at that time and would have attached myself to a mass murder if you told me he would listen. Prick was no different, he was there for me, he was empathetic to me and he was IRONICALLY going through the same thing I was. When I had a bad day, he was right there with a hug and a boost to my fragile ego. I quickly became attached to his ability to cure my broken heart and found myself spending a lot of time with him outside of work. We would meet at coffee shops, hang out for happy hour, sit outside the restaurant after it closed and talk about life. There was a connection wtih Prick that I desperately searched for within my exhusband. Little did I know he was simply studying me and playing the part.
The divorce took three months to become finalized. It was during that time that Prick began to really expose his true plan. He was in love with me, and I was what he was looking for in his life. I was the one that he wanted to be with and he would whatever it took to be with me. I remember like it was yesterday, me sitting at my desk and him standing at the sink telling me "I want to be with you Sarah. You are the one I want to spend my time with, I am in love with you." Like an answer to my prayer, I became blinded to the words I wanted to hear and the emotion I wanted to feel so much in the past three years of my relationship with my ex. I basically stood at the edge of the water and jumped in head first. Looking back, I should have checked to make sure there was a boat nearby....
Wow, this was all happening so fast, but I thought of all the success stories of stumbling upon happiness right out of divorce. I was actually going to be one of those people. My mind was taken off of the pain of my divorce and emerged into this new relationship. I basically took one step off a ledge and jumped onto another. There was no time to mourn the death of my marriage. I simply wrapped it up in denial and stuffed it on the shelf of my subconscious. (I would deal with it later.) My thoughts were overwhelming as far as Prick was concerned. We talked about what our lives would be like when we were together. Our children were the same age, he and I were at the same point in our divorce (Prick ironically was going through a divorce as well and looking at apartments) I remember going with him to the place he moved into. It was an absolute piece of crap and had nothing but a big screen tv in it that resembled a movie screen in a port a potty. We would sit on the floor of his apartment and talk about our future. We would smoke on his patio and listen to each others issues of their ex's (wow Prick, you are going through that too? What are the odds?) One night, he got us a case of beer and we sat out by the pool and put our feet in the water and talked till the sun came up. I learned all about him and his past, where he was from, what he was about. I now wonder how much of that was real and how much of it was scripted.
The funny thing about Prick, is nobody ever saw his wife or whatever she was. If you remember the movie sixteen candles when Anthony Michael Hall takes the picture of him and the prom queen in the back of the mercedes, and the only thing that came out was his eye? Well that is all we saw of Pricks wife. A worn out photo of Pricks youngest son being steadied by a hand. The hand...that is all we ever saw of Pricks wife. She could have been an aunt, a neighbor, a cousin, his dentist..we had no idea. After many discussions, those of us that new Prick began to question whether or not he was ever really married and if those "kids" he had were just hired actors paid in jelly beans and happy meals. In the years that I knew Prick, I only saw his kids twice and both times they looked dramatically different. It could be my imagination, but they had aged quite a bit for two little boys in only two months.
Prick lived in his apartment for only about a couple of months. Little by little, the big screen tv had seen the addition of a couch, a book shelf, one plate, a box of rice and two coffee cups. He picked me up from work one day and had a couple of walmart bags in the back. He had purchased a toothbrush for me, my own loofah, my own shampoo, and body lotion. The man did not have a bed, but he had bubble bath. My heart melted as he handed the bag over to me as if it were an engagement ring. It was at that moment I looked at him and all he had given up for me...and our life was on the way to become this amazing relationship. He told me that night that he was helplessly in love with me. Looking back, the only word I couldn't have agreed with more, was helpless.
What happened next was a whirlwind of emotional ups and down. Prick decided that he didn't want to stay in the apartment anymore and one day just up and moved. I couldn't understand how you walk out on a lease without any kind of notice, but he just laid the keys on the carpet, took his 92" big screen and his two coffee cups and loofah and left. He then moved in with another manager of mine as he was trying to figure out where he wanted to go in his life. "that apartment was just not working for him. It was too small and he didn't feel comfortable there." I was sympathetic toward his situation and stood by his side during his move. Days later, he was transferred to another location to help the GM out there. We had our tearful goodbyes on the back patio and like a young man going off to war, we vowed to write and never let the 4 miles of distance change our love for one another.
The GM he worked for at the other location just so happened to be my best friend. She was well aware of the relationship between me and Prick and her and her husband's house became a safe haven for us. The four of us would hang out, celebrate holidays together and just do couple things. Prick began to have issues where he was staying and contemplated moving back in with his "phantom" ex wife. My friend and his GM, which I shall call "K" immediatlely opened her house to him and he moved his loofah into her house. "I am doing this for you, Sarah, so that he doesn't have to go back to living with his ex." My heart was overwhelmed with her love and support for me. She was torn by having her assistant live with her, but found that it actually was nice to have him there and we all became close friends.
In December of that year, after Prick had been at K's store for the majority of a year, we had to travel to Chicago for a work conference. We were on our way to a bar after the day's meetings and I called Prick to see how he was doing. He was exhausted from work and was going to bed for the night. I smiled at my wonderful relationship with him and continued in chicago for the next few days. When we returned to Austin, K called me on the way to work to say "I have to tell you something." Ok...what was it? "well when my husband came home the night we went to Chicago, he found a strange car in our driveway. It belonged to (I shall call her "B") from work. Prick and "B" were on the couch playing cards when her husband came home...and when he got up that morning, her car was still in the driveway. I should preface this by saying "B" was "K's" 18 year old employee. This girl was also Pricks 18 year old employee. Prick was spending the night in his boss's house, his girlfriends best friend's house, with a girl that was young enough to be his daughter. "K" told me it was not the only night she had been there. My stomach fell to my feet and I thanked her for telling me and went to work. Prick called me later that afternoon and I asked him about it. "nothing happened Sarah, we are just friends. She was drunk and passed out on my bed. I slept next to her to make sure she didn't get sick."
Are you kidding me? This was the line of bs he was giving me?
"K" made him move out after that. She told him that he was going to have to find another place to stay. It was shortly after this situation that another girl that worked at "k" and Pricks restaurant was fooling around with him as well.
All those emotions of my divorce paired with lonliness fell from the top shelf of that hiding place and hit me like a ton of bricks. Prick quit working at the restaurant we were at and basically disappeared. We would fiind out later that he was involved in three other relationships at the time he was "wooing" me. Like an ace bandage, I worked on removing the wool from my eyes. People came out of the woodwork telling me stories of "b" and Prick. I was ashamed that a girl that had once been complimented on her ability to see the truth in people had been blind sided by a Prick.
It took me a long long time to get over Prick. He is still present in my thoughts over three years later. I think of him everytime I hear a story of how a girl was screwed over or how she was being strung along by a guy that had only his appendage in mind. I know that Prick will forever be my "I have been through that too" story. It feels good to be able to tell the story of him and how gullable I was at such a fragile time in my life. I don't think I even cared who it was that loved me, but I needed someone to help me through the painful aftermath of a failed marriage.
Since then, I have dusted myself off and become a bit smarter when it comes to relationships. I am much more guarded now...but will never forget the Prick that made me that way.
