tales of Suchita

I should stop, I tell myself.

I scroll through AG’s stories. I pause at a story where they are posing with a girl in a bikini. Something ugly rises inside me. But I don’t stop.

God I’m being pathetic. I should stop, I tell myself again.

I have scrolled through all the stories so I look at the posts. AG has posted only two new photos since we broke up but they deleted a hundred and fifty-four photos of us from the grid. I know this because I have an excel sheet with all the links. I was collating them to create a collage for our three-year anniversary which was four days ago.

AG didn’t even have the decency to break up with me after our anniversary. The break up happened twenty-four hours before the big dinner party I had planned. They suffered no consequences for deciding to finish a three-year relationship. All they had to do was commission their new partner to come to our…my…house and pack a bag with their belongings.

I had to cancel the caterers and bear the ignominy of cancellation charges.

I had to tell all the people I had invited that the party had been cancelled.

I had to bear all the unsolicited advice on how to get AG back, how to apologize, how to not lose hope.

In that moment I hated everyone. Had AG come in front of me, I would have murdered them.

What hurts is they have moved on already. Like I had been nothing but an inconvenience. Like our years together were so inconsequential it did not even warrant an explanation.

I am furious. I want to destroy AG. I want them to feel every ounce of humiliation that they subjected me to.

That’s why I’m scrolling through their Instagram. I’m gathering ammunition.

The great thing is, AG is addicted to Instagram. They think they’re some sort of an influencer because instead of living the hustle culture, their brand is to live a slow life. Apparently, the vacation starved millennial has been eating up AG’s brand of bullshit.

I roll my eyes. It will be easy to find a way to break their pride. But I must ensure it does not come on me. If I have to hear AG say “jealousy looks so ugly on you baby” in their pretentious, nasally voice, then I will do something violent.

So, I start to study AG’s new partner and how they were chosen. Once I have a handle on it, I open a new Instagram account and fill it with stock photos for it to feel like a real account. AI helps me create some amazing visuals of what I am pretending to look like. I spend six months curating my profile, especially targetted to entice AG.

It’s brilliant!

Two weeks after our break up, I realize I suddenly have time for shit I didn’t have before because AG was taking up all of it. Three weeks after our break as I see my alter-ego, the depth of my ingenuity and patience scare me.

But I keep at it.

I approach AG gently and make AI write my responses to their inane questions so my voice will be authentic. It takes me only three months to reel them in. Suddenly, AG is telling me their deepest, darkest, smallest secrets.

They even take my name and say maybe they had been hasty in breaking up with me. I was on brand apparently. The new partner is not on brand and their followers are not accepting the relationship. They have to do something before they lose any more followers, AG tells me one night at 2 AM. We have been chatting on Instagram for over an hour.

That’s when I take my chance. I subtly start to encourage AG to go back to me. A month into this, I use my original account to like one of AG’s posts.

That’s all it takes for them to call me. One like on an aesthetically pleasing photo of a pizza with the caption: When you live the slow life, even pizza calories do not count. #BeSlowWithMe.

I grimace at the hashtag. Clearly no one told AG how misleading that hashtag is. The new partner is a dumbo. Only I can help AG build their…our…brand.

I am aloof during our first few conversations. I have to make AG beg after all. On the side though, my alter-ego pushes AG to keep trying.

It is a joint effort really but a year after our break up, AG and I are in bed together and the new partner has been shown the door. I refuse to go collect their things. I’m not going to be that accommodating anymore. I got used to all the free time. Maybe after our one-year anniversary.

I think about breaking up with AG at our second two-year anniversary. It would have been the ultimate revenge. But when AG says, “I wish you could meet my best friend. She is an artist who lives in Borneo. She has agoraphobia so physically meeting her is impossible. She says my slow life motto really helped her feel like she could live her own authentic lifeo. She’s the one who convinced me to come back to you actually. I have never been more grateful for a friend like her,” I knew I have already won.

Now is the time to savour the victory.

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Song: Paparazzi by Lady Gaga

Check out the other posts for 2023 here. Written as part of #BlogchatterA2Z

Header image: Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash