Emergency exit strategies.

So I'm sitting in a room, alone, three stories above downtown Nashville thinking about how every relationship has ended in one of very few ways. There's the "I can't be this close to you anymore" and the "I hate your guts" and

Of course, "I've been sleeping with someone else," which I've come to know as the most heartbreaking, most effective way out of any relationship. There's an art to leaving people, one day, I just found myself sitting here alone, waiting for Mr. Whomever to come home, wanting to know how my day was and why there was a gun on the table. This wasn't a tale of 'he had it coming' he was so innocent, so perfect, never done a thing wrong by me, but that was the problem. I was a drifter, and I'd met Mr. Right, Mr. Great Job and insurance policy with a luxury apartment, and I was really hoping he'd just smack me around and give me a reason to leave him. He was in line for a promotion, and I was looking for a ride out of town. What this was about to become was what scam-artists call the long haul, I'd been settled for two years with this one, and I was tired of sitting still. When I said all this to him, his only words where "oh," and "that's it then?" and only

After he handed me his keys to his beautiful muscle car that rode like a mid-life crisis, did it occur to him to ask if we could work this out? He said he'd give me anything to stay, when I said I wanted something to destroy, his eyes glanced back at the keys to his car. He knew better, but he questioned everything, he wanted me to stay, so I did what I always do when they are about to say those three little words that lose meaning after you say them on the phone too many times, I say "you know Bill? Your boss? There's a reason why you're looking at promotion," and I wink. Sometimes the eyes tear up, sometimes they say "no, no, you don't mean that" in a real solemn tone. There's always a chance for the words ' marriage' or 'counseling' red flags, I promise you. Girls like me hate all of that. At age 28, with 14 years of experience building guys up just to tear them down, I'm a professional.

I grabbed my suitcase, the keys, and I made him promise he wouldn't try to hurt me. I say "who gets the gun?" and start walking towards the door, a click notes the bullet sliding into place from the clip, and a sigh means 'you take it, you need it more' in the event of a small click, drop everything, break up sex is better than any other sex ever, and if he gives a small sigh, keep walking. There's no reason to look back at a man as weak as that.

Leave. Get into the car, drive east. Sleep in bar parking lots and stop at Love's truck stops when you need to. When you finally hit that coastline, you know you're free. It was a ritual I'd finished a few times; most relationships just weren't as great as the one I'd just torn down. It really wasn't much short of marriage. I don't know if I loved him, towards the end I hated him for being so good to me. I didn't know why, or if there was a reason at all. I just had to leave. There was someone on that coast I needed to see. The first guy I ever tried to destroy, I mean really tried. We were in high school, and he was posing a challenge, I had set my sights on my best friends boyfriend, and he'd set his on me. It was definitely a decent size problem, and was going to cause a great amount of destruction, both of us being like-minded we became best friends and eventually we were seeing each other on the side. He was the first guy I fucked, he was the father

Of the first thing that grew inside of me, he was perfect, because he never got attached. We never got attached. The sex was a waste of effort, I never saw a reason why to do it, or why not to, so sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't. I loved him, in a way. Not true love, just, like you love a close friend.  Going back to see him was like having a time machine, I always felt like a little girl again when he answered his door in boxers with that big grin on his face, but lacking the courtesy to invite me in or you know, put pants on. It wasn't hard to invite oneself into his house, or to make breakfast in his kitchen regardless of the hour, the hard part was the shock of the words "I've got a kid now" when I tripped over a Big Wheel when he was 24, or the wedding band tan he sported, though I knew he'd never been married. We'd play catch-up for days, telling about the latest conquest or whatever you want to call it. I loved the stories, the

Descriptions of the girls he tore down, he was always surprised I held up so well, the asshole he was. This time when I knocked on his door, a little girl answered, his baby girl of four years old, yelling for her daddy, and I scooped her up and took her inside, I'd always had a soft spot for children, when I looked at this little girl, it made me miss him. I went into the kitchen and made pancakes like I always do and fixed her a plate before Mr. Mom showed up, wearing jeans and a t-shirt just like he did in high school, I was surprised, honestly, he was 29 years old, a little old to dress like a kid, but I wasn't dressed much better, leather pants and half a shirt. What a pair we made, my beautiful 72 charger, and I wouldn't be surprised if he had a car seat strapped to a motorcycle in the garage. I asked why he had her, all he said was "suicide" he looked at her as if she was the only girl for him, he was in love alright. Knowing him, he considered her

his first love, that's just who he was. He was having a hard time being the single dad, he'd preferred split custody because it gave them both time to work, now it wasn't an option, he'd quit his job but his savings were drying up quicker than he thought. On one hand, I wanted to stay here and help him, on the other I wanted to be free. I cried at the thought of leaving this little girl. She tore at my heartstrings as if she was the baby I'd lost so many years ago, she was this tiny little black haired angel with her green eyes, I'd loved her instantly, I knew that. It couldn't last though. It was too good for me. My exes were funding my life, I didn't know if they'd notice a slight raise in my bills, or if I'd get cut off, but I had a few ideas on how to keep things up like I had, and things ran smoothly. I lived in the spare bedroom, I took care of her while he worked, her grandma came to visit us once a week and eventually decided she wanted custody.

We were "spoiling her" and "she'd never grow up to take care of herself" she called me a con and a skank and took my baby from me on her fifth birthday, I'd been living there for seven months, the same length of time I'd been seeing him in high school. The next morning when I woke up, there was a voicemail on my cellphone and his bike was gone, he'd done the same thing I'd done time after time. I cleaned the house, put a key under the mat, packed what I had left and left the next week. They call it running when it gets like this, the text messages that we traded, riddles to where we were, I wasn't sure if I was looking for him or trying to get away, but I was running. It was love and it was hate that kept us going, but I went back to check on her and her greedy grandma and I found him, holding her above her bed, his one true love, and when Grandma walked by and saw our silhouettes, she screamed her last breath, and fell to the floor. He didn't see me

Until I grabbed her bear and said 'let's go,' but that was all it took. We ran then, driving in no particular direction until I ran out of gas in Fremont, Ohio. We walked to a gas station and got a gallon, and I decided that it was a sign; we were supposed to be there, so we stayed. His girl was school age, I was tired of moving around for the moment, and it seemed like all at once we just sat down and relaxed, and we didn't have any more problems. We learned how to breathe. Something most people take for granted.