Wednesday evening, Malcolm shows up at my parents house again. My dad sees him through the window and calls me immediately. I drive over there and find Malcolm sitting on their front porch, refusing to leave until someone talks to him.
I walk up to him and ask what the hell he thinks he’s doing. He tells me he’s been sitting there for 2 hours waiting for someone to come home so he could explain his side properly.
Malcolm starts talking rapidly about how everyone has turned against him based on incomplete information. That the group chat messages were taken out of context and the kiss with Sabrina was just drunken stupidity, not deliberate cruelty. That he’s been in love with me for 2 years and would never intentionally hurt me.
I tell him that intentional or not, he did hurt me. That his actions had consequences and now he has to live with them.
Malcolm gets more agitated and says I’m being completely unforgiving about one mistake that happened when he was drunk. He asks me to look at everything good about our relationship instead of focusing on one bad night. Reminds me of trips we took together, holidays with each other’s families, plans we made for the future. Says 2 years of love and commitment should count for more than 15 minutes of poor judgment.
But here’s the thing that really gets me. He still won’t take full responsibility. It’s always poor judgment or a mistake or one bad night. Never, I deliberately kissed my ex to hurt you or I let my friends film your humiliation for entertainment.
My dad comes outside and tells Malcolm he needs to leave their property immediately. Malcolm starts arguing that he has a right to try to save his relationship and that my dad is interfering in something that’s none of his business.
My dad steps closer and tells Malcolm that when he lies to parents to manipulate their daughter, it becomes their business. That Malcolm made it their business by involving them in his scheme to pressure me into forgiving him.
Malcolm finally leaves, but not before turning to me and saying,
“This isn’t over between us. That he knows I still love him, and eventually I’ll realize I’m throwing away the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Malcolm genuinely believes he’s the victim in this situation. In his mind, I’m destroying a good relationship over one minor incident that I’m blowing completely out of proportion.
But you know what? I’ve been working on something since this all started. Something that’s going to show Malcolm exactly who he’s been dealing with this whole time. And after watching him manipulate both our families this week, I’m more motivated than ever to make sure he gets exactly what he deserves.
The trap is almost ready. Malcolm thinks he knows me, but he has no idea what I’m really capable of when someone pushes me too far.
Last update, guys. I cannot believe what just happened. Remember that trap I mentioned? Well, it went down yesterday and Malcolm’s entire world just imploded in the most beautiful way possible. I’m still buzzing from the adrenaline and honestly feeling like the absolute queen I know I am.
So, here’s what I’ve been planning since this whole nightmare started.
Malcolm thinks he’s smart with his manipulation tactics, but he made one crucial mistake. He underestimated exactly how smart I am and how well I know his patterns. See, Malcolm has this thing where he can’t resist bragging about his conquests. Always has. He filmed the whole Sabrina kiss situation because he gets off on having proof of his power over women.
And I knew, absolutely knew that he’d saved videos from that party.
Thursday afternoon, I text Malcolm asking if we can meet up to talk, not to get back together, but to have an honest conversation about where we went wrong so we can both move forward. He responds within 30 seconds saying yes and suggests we meet at the coffee shop near campus where we had our first date.
I tell him that’s too public and emotional for this kind of conversation.
“What if we meet at his apartment Saturday afternoon so we can talk privately without interruptions?”
Malcolm agrees immediately, probably thinking I’m finally ready to come crawling back like he predicted.
Saturday, I show up at Malcolm’s place at 2 p.m. He’s clearly put effort into his appearance. Showered, nice shirt, even cleaned his normally messy apartment. He offers me coffee and asks how I’ve been holding up. all concerned and caring like he wasn’t sending me unhinged text messages at 4:00 a.m.
I tell Malcolm I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our relationship and I want to understand his perspective on what happened that maybe I did overreact to some things and I want to hear his side without interrupting or getting defensive.
Malcolm’s whole face lights up. He starts explaining how he never meant to hurt me and how the party situation got completely out of hand due to peer pressure and alcohol. That kissing Sabrina was just him being stupid and showing off, not any kind of deliberate betrayal.
I nod along and ask follow-up questions. What exactly were his friends saying that made him feel pressured? How did the kiss with Sabrina actually start? Was there anything leading up to it that I missed?
Malcolm gets more animated as he talks, clearly feeling like he’s finally getting through to me. He explains how Dean and Randall kept joking about him being whipped and under my control. How they dared him to prove he wasn’t afraid of me by flirting with other women.
Then he tells me something I didn’t know before. Apparently, the whole thing was planned. Dean had texted Sabrina earlier that week and invited her to the party specifically to mess with our relationship. They thought it would be hilarious to see how I’d react to her showing up.
I act surprised and hurt by this revelation. Ask Malcolm why he went along with a plan designed to humiliate me. He gets defensive and says he didn’t know about Dean’s plan until that night and by then he was too drunk to think clearly.
Malcolm explains that when Sabrina started flirting with him, his friends began filming and egging him on. That he felt trapped between disappointing his friends and disappointing me. So, he made a split-second decision that he immediately regretted.
I tell Malcolm I appreciate his honesty and I’m starting to understand what really happened. that maybe I was too quick to judge the situation without knowing all the facts.
Malcolm relaxes completely, probably thinking he successfully manipulated me back into forgiveness.
Then I ask the question I’ve been building up to. I tell Malcolm that my friends have been asking me what really happened that night, and I want to be able to explain it accurately.
“Do you still have any videos from the party that might help me understand exactly how everything went down?”
Malcolm hesitates for a second, then admits he has some videos on his phone. He says his friends sent him clips from that night, but he hasn’t looked at them because they’re too painful to watch.
I ask if we could watch them together so I can see what he saw and understand his experience better. Malcolm waivers, clearly uncomfortable, but eventually agrees. He says maybe it would be good for both of us to face what happened honestly.
He pulls out his phone and opens his photo gallery. There are at least 15 videos from that party. We start watching them together.
And guys, they are so much worse than I even remembered.
The first few videos show Malcolm dancing with other women while I’m standing nearby looking uncomfortable. You can hear Dean and Randall making comments about testing my limits and seeing how much I’ll tolerate.
Then we get to the videos of Malcolm with Sabrina. There’s one where he’s clearly groping her ass while she grinds against him. Another where he’s whispering in her ear while staring directly at me across the room. You can hear his friends laughing and saying things like,
“She looks pissed and this is so good.”
The kiss video is the worst part. It shows Malcolm grabbing Sabrina aggressively and kissing her with obvious passion. The video captures Dean and Randall chanting she deserved it while pointing their cameras at me. You can see me in the background looking absolutely destroyed.
But here’s the part that makes my blood boil. There’s a video after I left. Malcolm and Sabrina are making out again, more intensely this time. He’s got her pressed against the wall with his hands up her dress. Randall is filming and you can hear him saying,
“Post this [ __ ] She needs to see what she’s missing.”
As we’re watching these videos, Malcolm keeps trying to minimize what I’m seeing.
