First, Do No Harm

The package had been unsolicited. They always were.

It was in his nature to send gifts, however. Handwritten notes with imported chocolates and infused tea for purposes unspecified. He would say it was because I told him I was having a bad week. Because he knew it was impossible to fly home when I really wanted to.

Before the trip to New York, the package contained a new type of black tea and two Ben Harper CDs.

“One of the songs is your ringtone on my phone. Guess which one,” he goaded.

I didn’t guess, but instead, promised to give the CDs a thorough analysis when I returned.

It was when I was in New York and he was in Chicago, however, that further dissolution of the relationship that was not would occur. He would say it was my fault. He always said it was my fault.

For the year and a half I’d known him, I was always somehow in the wrong, hurting him intentionally, he said. Our conversations were more often than not in a state of apology. It was the reason that his tokens of affection had availed naught. Anyone can buy gifts. Not everyone can love a person as they are.

And so, it was then, in New York on Sabbath afternoon, when an ex-boyfriend and nothing more came to lunch. I had asked the permission of my aunt and uncle, but had been unscrupulous about the details of the relationship past with my cousins.

“Oh come on, it was just lunch with the family,” my mother told me when I told her that the ex’s presence had probably reached his ears.

“That’s what I thought,” I replied.

But it’s not what I thought. I knew that word would travel through the grapevine. I knew that he would suspect cruel intentions, indicative of my character, he would say. He would judge me, then condemn me. As usual, I would be expected to offer an apology for hurting him. This time, I wouldn’t.

I would listen to the CDs instead and make conclusions about his former intentions. I would decide that the song was “Forever” and pity his loss.