Which One of Us is the Crazy One?

It took two and a half months for Javier to move out. For nearly ten weeks, I fought an internal battle between my impatience that he wouldn't leave and my fear of pressuring or forcing him to do so. It had taken so much energy and courage just to ask him to leave; I felt like pushing him was more than I could manage.

Meanwhile, my parents threatened daily to toss his shit out on the lawn -- and a part of me loved the idea, but I knew he could just as easily bring it all back inside (no, I did not get the key back from him the day we broke up, something I certainly regret).

He finally left in August. I don't remember the day, if there was any kind of pomp and circumstance to the moment, or if he did it while I was out of the house. No clue. I just know that one fine August day, he was gone.

Well...he was out of our house, anyway.

I don't remember anymore when it started -- the phone calls, the random appearances at our house -- but I do remember being annoyed. I wanted him gone for good and he was like some stupid mismatched sock that just kept showing up. 

One evening he came to the house again, said he wanted to talk to me. At this point, I had no interest in anything he had to say but he was insistent and seemed sincere so I agreed to sit out on the porch and listen to whatever he wanted to say.

He went on an on about this girl he was living with (yes, you read that right -- not even three months out of my house and he was living with another woman), and how he felt like she didn't trust him. She was listening to his phone calls, accusing him of being with other girls, the whole nine yards. Inside I was screaming, but I managed to simply take a breath, look him in the eye, and ask, "Well, how does it feel?"

He gave me that blank look, like he didn't understand the question, so I rephrased it. 

"It doesn't feel good, does it? Living with someone who treats you like that?"

He only shook his head and changed the subject. I don't know if he was playing me or not --  hoping for a specific reaction, lying to my face, maybe both. I just know I was done with all of it and didn't have it in me to play along.

Early one evening that December, my mom and I decided to go Christmas shopping -- it was one of our favorite things to do, aside from decorating -- while my dad was off at a choral group rehearsal. We were gone for maybe two hours, and when we got back we engaged in another favorite activity: dessert and evening TV. 

But when I went to turn on the cable box, the remote was missing. It was always either on the coffee table by the couch, or the on the tray table beside mom's chair, but it was in neither place -- or in any other not-at-all-logical place. It was just gone. 

Giving up the search, I went into my bedroom and grabbed the remote for my TV and we went on with our night, making a point to remember to ask dad if he'd for some reason run off with the remote. 

A week later, I got a call from my mom at work. She wanted to know where I'd found the cable remote for the living room. Thinking she'd lost a marble or two I reminded her that we were using the one from my room, but she said "no, your remote is in your room. The one with the sticker (which was the living room remote) is right here on the tray table."

Once again, my body went cold. "We need to change the locks," I told her.

My mom gave a half-laugh, half-sigh. "The locksmith is already here."

I hung up, feeling like my life had just been turned upside down -- again.

What bothered me more than knowing Javier had likely made a copy of the house key before he left; more than the very clear understanding that he was not done messing with my head; was the fact that my mother was in the house when he entered.

She and I both knew that the night before the temporary remote was in the living room, so if the "right" remote was back in its place when she came downstairs the next morning at eleven o'clock, he'd come into the house some time after my dad and I left for work, knowing what time my mother habitually came downstairs.

It's hard to find the right word for what I was feeling. Horrified, terrified, furious. All of those but none of those. It was just too much.

The safety, the sanctuary I'd found in my parents' home after two and half years of living in fear, had been violated once again. 

And it wasn't over yet.