At first, Kathleen didn’t seem to notice that Amantha was taking longer to reply to her messages, both by phone and online. Then—just when Amantha was relieved and grateful that she didn’t question her—she did exactly that.
“Not hearing as much from you these days,” Kathleen said in an email one evening. “Anything you want to talk about by phone?”
Waiting until she was pretty sure Kathleen would be in bed, Amantha replied, “Just busy doing some writing projects for a friend.”
“Oh? What friend and projects?” came the immediate reply, much to Amantha’s disappointment.
“It’s just a cyber-friend that isn’t a very good writer, but wants to write a story about a vacation she and her boyfriend took recently. I’m helping her with it.”
Kathleen seemed to accept this excuse, even though Amantha hated to be dishonest with her. They discussed trivial things like the weather for a few minutes before Kathleen said she was ready for bed. Kathleen signed off with her usual “hugs and kisses,” but this time Amantha didn’t follow with her own. She simply told Kathleen to sleep well and have nice dreams.
Amantha was dreading the approaching weekend because she knew Kathleen would want to get together. This time, she held firmer ground when she finally decided to answer one of Kathleen’s many phone calls.
“I’m sorry, Kathleen. Not this weekend. Roland and I haven’t had an entire weekend together in a while, so let’s make it next weekend instead, okay?”
“Yeah, we can do that. I was just worried that something was wrong.”
“No, not at all,” Amantha quickly assured her, noting that Kathleen sounded more irritated than concerned. She didn’t want to lie to Kathleen either, so she said, “I just think things started going a wee bit too fast for me.”
Amantha expected Kathleen to be understanding, maybe even to feel a little bad for making her feel that way, promising to slow down. After all, Kathleen had always seemed easygoing and sensitive. But she expected incorrectly.
“Oh? Are you sure about that? I mean, it’s just that you seemed pretty comfortable with the pace before.”
“I was before the pace got rather frenzied. We used to mix it up—you know, dining, sex, shopping, talking. But now it’s nothing but sex.”
“Well, no, we can talk if you want. We can still talk whenever you want, about anything you want.”
“Well, we’re talking right now,” Amantha said with a slight laugh, hoping to lighten the mood. However, she didn’t sense much happiness from the other end of the line. The silence stretched on, growing deafening. Finally, Amantha asked, “Kathleen, what do you want from me?”
“The same thing you want.”
Amantha chose her words carefully. “Yeah, well, I’m starting to think we don’t exactly want the same thing.”
“Are you sure about that?”
Ignoring her, Amantha said, “You’re single, Kathleen. I get that.”
“Oh!” Kathleen said with heavy sarcasm. “You think that’s it? That I’m just lonely because I’m single and don’t have a husband to fill in the gaps? Or more like a girlfriend to fill in a husband’s gaps, like you do?”
“Kathleen, you’re not a fill-in. You don’t fill in anybody or anything. You were just a fun addition and—”
“Wait a minute,” Kathleen said, cutting her off. “Now I’m just fun?”
“Oh, come on. You know exactly what I mean, and I really don’t want to argue with you about it anymore. Why don’t we just take a break from each other for now?”
A moment of silence followed—and it wasn’t a comforting silence either. It made Amantha more uncomfortable, even nervous, though she wasn’t concerned at that point. She figured all she had to do was ignore Kathleen in the future and then be polite when she went to the dentist.
But Amantha didn’t know if Kathleen could mess with her records in any way that could come back to haunt her, so maybe breaking it off completely wasn’t in her best interest.
“I don’t mean that kind of break, Kathleen,” she said, trying to keep her voice down so Roland wouldn’t hear her from the other room. “Of course we can still see each other—just a little less often, that’s all.”
But Kathleen couldn’t be appeased. No matter how hard Amantha tried to fix things between them, Kathleen remained angry. At first, Amantha thought she would hang up on her, but quickly found that she wasn’t going to get that lucky no matter what she said.
“Look, I promise you everything is okay. I still adore you, we’re still going to get together, and everything is great. Just not this weekend. Now I’ve got to get some things done around here, so you have a great night.”
As soon as Amantha hung up, Kathleen called her right back, courtesy of speed dial.
A sinking sensation began to wash over Amantha. It was then she began to realize that she could have a genuine problem on her hands—and that Kathleen wasn’t simply going to go away. This was clearly someone who had become obsessed with her, and Amantha didn’t have to be a psych major to know that the best way to deal with someone like this was to cut as many ties as possible and ignore them completely. Replying to any messages would only keep things going and feed their fantasies.
Yet Kathleen wasn’t the quick shake Amantha believed she would be. Not even close.
ns216.73.217.39da2
and then Add to home screen.