By K.T. Tillman
I read my ex-boyfriend’s fiancée’s online journal. It’s password-protected, but I can still read it because I know his password. He still uses the same password for everything. It’s half-letters and half-numbers and I’m sure the only reason he hasn’t changed it in however many years is that he thinks there’s no way in hell anyone could ever memorize it, let alone guess it. But my memory really kicks into overdrive when there’s a password involved. I never even wrote it down.
I don’t feel that bad about snooping on her, really, even though it’s awful and I ought to feel like a terrible person. The thing is, I know from snooping on her that she snoops on me back. She even snoops on me enough to know that I snoop on her. But she doesn’t know that I know that she knows. Anyway, knowing that makes me feel a little better about what is obviously a sick obsession with my ex-boyfriend. As long as I’m not the only one.
It’s not like we still talk or anything. He told me, on instant messenger, a few months after we finally broke up, that everything was going to be different starting then. Those weren’t his exact words, but he did say he wasn’t ever going to get involved with anyone he met online again, and that he wasn’t ever going to date any more young girls. I was 20 at the time, and I think by young girls he meant women under his age, which was 25. I bragged about all the sex I was having with people who weren’t him, and he said he was “celibate.” That was the last time we talked.
Then he met this 19-year-old girl on the Internet, and now they’re getting married. Their future plans include living off the grid in a house made out of corncobs.
The main thing about this girl is that one of her eyelids is droopy. Maybe it doesn’t bother other people, because a lot of people tell her she’s pretty when she posts pictures of herself online. But it bothers me, because one of my eyelids is droopy, too, and I’ve been hating it for years. I’d never post pictures of myself that so clearly displayed my droopy eyelid.
The eyelid’s not the only thing we have in common. He even calls her the same pet name-Panda-that he used to call me. Not that I can blame him for it; I did the same thing with someone else.
I used to think maybe I was worried about her. I didn’t want him treating anyone else the way he treated me. I thought maybe I should warn her somehow. But then I realized that she was reading my password-protected online journal too, and if that wasn’t enough to make her realize that he’s dangerous, he’s clearly done way too good a job convincing her that I’m crazy for anything I say to be considered anything other than hysterical and obsessive. Which is probably fair, considering. But it’s not like my being crazy will keep him from hitting her one day. Or worse.
Now, mostly, I think I do it because I just don’t want him to be happy. Not while I’m still hung-up. I’m looking for clues that maybe things aren’t so perfect with them. Clues that maybe he does treat her badly. I haven’t found any to speak of. But sometimes, when I read his e-mail, I get the same anxious, nauseated feeling I had when we were together.
Excerpted from Kiss Machine #11