Malcolm sent a shirtless photo of himself in bed with messy hair.
“Single life is treating me incredibly well already.”
He captioned it,
“More laughing emojis followed from all his friends.”
“Malcolm thinks he knows exactly who I am. He thinks I’m still the same naive girl who apologized after our first fight 2 years ago. the girl who blamed herself when he joked about my weight in front of his entire family last Christmas. Right now, he’s probably out celebrating with his friends, thinking he’s won some kind of victory. He has no idea what’s coming for him.”
First update. So, remember how Malcolm said I’d come crawling back by Tuesday? Well, guess what happened on Tuesday? Absolutely nothing. I didn’t text him, didn’t call him, didn’t even check his social media. And apparently, this broke his entire brain because by Wednesday morning, I had 17 missed calls and 43 text messages.
The messages started normal for Malcolm.
“Hey babe, you’re being really immature about this whole thing.”
Then they got progressively more desperate.
“I know you’re reading these messages.”
“Why are you ignoring me when I’m trying to fix this?”
“This silent treatment thing is getting really old.”
By Thursday, he was practically having a meltdown through text.
“I can’t believe you’re actually going to throw away 2 years over one harmless joke.”
“Sabrina meant absolutely nothing to me.”
“You have to know that.”
“I was drunk and my friends were egging me on.”
“You know how they get.”
Here’s the thing that really gets me. He kept calling it a joke. like making out with his ex while his friends filmed me enchanted was just some hilarious prank I should appreciate. The audacity of this man is truly something else.
Friday afternoon, he showed up at my workplace. My co-orker Miranda came to find me in the break room and told me there was some guy in the lobby asking for me, looking really agitated. I peeked around the corner and there was Malcolm pacing back and forth, running his hands through his hair like he always does when he’s stressed.
I walked out there and his whole face lit up like he thought I was finally ready to forgive him. He started talking immediately.
“Thank God I’ve been trying to reach you for days. We need to talk about this situation and figure out how to move forward together.”
I told him we could talk right there in the lobby since he’d made such a public spectacle of our relationship already. His expression changed real quick.
“Don’t be like this,” he said. “You’re being really unfair. I came here to apologize and work things out like adults.”
So, I asked him what exactly he was apologizing for. And guys, this man actually said he was sorry that I misunderstood his joke and got my feelings hurt. Not sorry for kissing his ex. Not sorry for humiliating me. Sorry that I’m too sensitive to appreciate his sense of humor.
I told him his apology was noted and he could leave now. He started getting louder then saying I was being completely unreasonable and making this whole thing way bigger than it needed to be.
“Every couple goes through stuff like this,” he said. “It’s called growing together and learning to trust each other.”
Miranda was watching from behind the reception desk along with half the office at this point. Malcolm noticed everyone staring and finally lowered his voice. He stepped closer and told me he wasn’t leaving until we worked this out properly.
That’s when I realized something crucial. He genuinely believed I would eventually cave like I always had before. The old me would have been embarrassed about causing a scene at work. The old me would have agreed to talk privately just to make him leave.
But something had shifted after watching those group chat screenshots. Reading him brag about putting me in my place and knowing I’d come crawling back changed everything for me.
I told Malcolm very clearly that we were done. Not taking a break, not working through issues, but completely finished.
His face went through about five different emotions in 10 seconds. Confusion, disbelief, anger, then this weird fake laugh like I was obviously kidding.
“You don’t mean that,” he said. “You’re just really upset right now. which I totally understand, but we’ve been together for 2 years. You can’t just throw that away over something this stupid.”
I explained that making out with his ex while his friends filmed it wasn’t stupid. It was deliberate humiliation. That his group chat messages showed exactly how he really felt about me. That showing up drunk at my apartment at 3:00 a.m. wasn’t romantic. It was disrespectful and honestly kind of scary.
Malcolm got defensive immediately.
“Those guys were just being guys. You know how group chats are. We say stupid stuff to impress each other. It doesn’t mean anything real.”
He claimed the kiss with Sabrina was just him being drunk and showing off. Nothing more serious than that.
But here’s what really sealed it for me. When I mentioned feeling scared when he showed up drunk, he actually rolled his eyes.
“Come on, you know I would never hurt you. Stop being so dramatic about everything.”
The fact that he dismissed my feelings about his drunk 3:00 a.m. visit told me everything I needed to know. This man does not respect my boundaries, my feelings, or my basic sense of safety. And he never will because in his mind, I’m just being dramatic and oversensitive.
I walked away from him standing in that lobby. just turned around and went back to work like he wasn’t even there. Through the window, I watched him stand there for another 10 minutes, probably waiting for me to come back out and resume the conversation.
When I got home that evening, my sister Celeste had left me three voicemails. Apparently, Malcolm had called her asking if she could talk some sense into me. He told her I was having some kind of breakdown and needed family intervention to see reason.
Celeste was furious. She said Malcolm explained the whole party situation like he was the victim of my jealousy and controlling behavior. According to him, I’d had a complete meltdown over innocent flirting and was now punishing him with silence.
But here’s the beautiful part. Celeste was actually at Curtis’s party. She saw the whole thing happen. She watched Malcolm kiss Sabrina while his friends chanted and filmed. She saw how humiliated I looked walking out.
So when Malcolm tried to rewrite history and make himself the victim, she shut that down real fast. She told Malcolm that what she witnessed wasn’t innocent flirting. It was public humiliation of his girlfriend for entertainment. that any man who would do that to someone he supposedly loved had serious problems and that if he ever called her again trying to manipulate family members, she’d have some choice words for him.
Malcolm apparently did not take this well. Celeste said he started arguing with her, insisting she didn’t understand the full context and that I’d been controlling and jealous for months. When she wouldn’t agree with him, he accused her of enabling my dramatic behavior.
That conversation happened yesterday.
This morning, I woke up to a text from Malcolm’s mom.
“Hi, sweetie. Malcolm told me you two are having some problems. I was hoping we could grab coffee this weekend and talk about working things out. You know how much Malcolm loves you.”
