Reddit Stories 2019

How to Forgive Your Imaginary Ex

"Sharon?"

Dirt blonde. Blue eyes with just a hint of grey around the pupil. A scar over his left eyebrow. He got it in a skiing accident when he was twelve. He and his dad decided they had enough of the small hills and wanted to do something more adventurous, but he accidentally went over the barricade and into a tree. His mom was furious about it. She almost canceled the whole trip. But it was a story he would always tell our friends after a few drinks, smiling his dumb crooked smile with one tooth slightly smaller than the other, chipped in the same accident.

That description fit a surprising number of people.

That voice did not.

"Sharon?" he asked again, almost squeaking with fear. But it wasn't quite fear. Fear was the last blonde-haired blue-eyed asshole with a scar and broken tooth, hiding in the hotel from the lady chasing him. That guy was too old to be Mike. Her Mike at least.

No the prior Mike with hair like a muddy hay bale was forty-five, fit, and got just what he deserved. That Mike earned his scar from a dog that was done fighting. His tooth wasn't chipped so much as rotted away. He wasn't Sharon's Mike, no, but she helped him pay his debt all the same.

Maybe Mike was angry. He definitely sounded it as he told her to stop, not that she listened. The last time she hesitated around an angry Mike, he almost broke her arm. They had been at a bar and she knew quickly that he wasn't the right person. The scar was on the wrong side. She couldn't blame the people helping her. It's not like she had any pictures to go off of. Not after he deleted them all.

Sharon was mad about that. She told the angry Mike as much when she kicked him through the window. That Mike's blue eyes were pale, almost pastel, and they narrowed at the sight of a man who looked different. And maybe if he had been quiet, letting his thoughts just be thoughts, Sharon would have left him alone. Then again, she later heard how he got his scar and lost his tooth. She would have gone back.

"Sharon, please, we can talk about this," Mike said. He bumped into the guitar hanging on the wall. That guitar! It was the last thing she saw when she closed her eyes every night for two years. Even though she had no receipt and no picture, she knew it was the same one she'd bought for his birthday. She would be sure to get a picture before she left. She could prove to her friends she was lying. "Sharon, please."

This Mike - her Mike - wasn't angry. It was something else. Shame, perhaps? Erasing years of history would be enough to give anyone, even Mike, clinical levels of guilt. Even a person devoid of empathy would logically understand the emotional toll of ghosting just a few months after anniversary number three. She hadn't even asked for a ring. They discussed marriage before and Mike mentioned that the thought of settling down like that made him uncomfortable. She should have taken it as a sign, but at the time she was just hurt.

Sad.

Like Sad Mike.

Sad Mike had dark blue eyes, hair so light it was almost bleached, and a scar over his left eyebrow. A gift from his father, Sad Mike explained. He understood what she felt. He understood what it was like to wake up one day with three years of your life yanked away and no evidence that they even happened. He knew what it was like to question your sanity. Mike had done a good job of disappearing, deleting every aspect of his existence. Even people who met him before denied knowing he ever existed.

All that remained of him was a sock under the bed and Sharon's own hazy memories.

Sad Mike with his sea blue eyes and white blonde hair deserved better. Sharon deserved better.

"Sharon, please don't," Mike said, tears running down his cheeks. She always hated seeing him cry. "Look, just hear me out. I'm sorry, alright! I'm sorry."

Sharon covered his mouth, stuffing a sock - his old sock! - halfway down his throat and sealing it with duct tape. Mike liked to call people who wronged him mouthbreathers. He'd be fine. For now. But what was the emotion in his blue eyes with specks of grey?

Was it love? After five years of searching, trekking back and forth across America, and proving repeatedly to her friends and family that she wasn't crazy, did she finally see what she saw for the first time four months into their three year relationship. They had said it a few times before then, but that lazy Sunday on vacation, wrapped in covers with books in their laps and tea in their hands he meant it. She could see it in Mike's eyes. It was, in a word, cozy. It just felt right. He really did love her! Sharon picked up her knife, relieved to know the last four years had just been a test.

A muffled sob came from the man with a scar over his eyebrow.

Oh, no, no. She was right the first time. It was fear.