Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

motorcycle across the street from my fraternity. I hurried out of the house and ran across the street to her.
    “Hey, Michelle, what are you doing here?”
    “Steve forgot something at his apartment.”
    Just then, Steve bounded down the stairs.
    “Will, this is Steve.”
    Steve was incredibly nice:
    “Oh hey, man! Great to finally meet you! Michelle told me all about you.”
    But nice in the way people might be nice when they’re having sex with your girlfriend.
    “Hi, Steve,” was all I could offer. Then we smiled at each other for a long time. Was this as weird for them as it was for me? I had to say something to break the silence.
    “So you live up here?”
    “Yep.”
    Steve pointed to his apartment—across the street from my fraternity house. I thought of all the spying I could have been doing the past several weeks. More awkward silence.
    “Well, we should get going.”
    I reluctantly agreed. “Yeah, I should get back to studying.”
    With that, Steve kick-started his motorcycle and Michelle hopped up behind him. As she reached her hands around his waist, I died inside a little. I walked back to my fraternity, bolstered by the support I got from my brothers.
    “Dude, he’s totally gonna plow her.”
    “For your information, he’s very good at math and he’s helping her with that.” I wanted so badly for it to be true I almost had myself convinced.
    That night, as I should have been studying, all I could think about was those arms reaching around his waist. I thought of the same thing happening in a bar—her arms reaching around his waist as he was ordering her a fifth Corona. All night, I kept waiting for Steve’s motorcycle to pull up across the street. I’d feel so much better when I saw him get back and walk up those stairs to his apartment, alone. But the motorcycle never came. Maybe he parked it somewhere down the street or maybe it broke down somewhere and he walked home that night. Maybe it was totaled when he foolishly tried to jump a hundred parked school buses in the middle of the desert.
    The next morning, I went to class, shat out my test, and ran back home to call Michelle. Finally, she answered.
    “Will, we need to talk.”
    And with that, I knew it was over. I went to her apartment and we started the proceedings. The first part of the breakup featured some pre-breakup small talk. (It’s bad form to launch directly into the meat of the breakup.) Next came the “airing of grievances” phase in which she listed the problems with our relationship. I have to admit, she made several strong points. Next came the rebuttal phase in which I went through a long list of things I’d be happy to change to make it work. She took this into consideration. Next came the actual breakup. This part was oddly short. And then suddenly we were no longer boyfriend and girlfriend. But there was still one last phase that was very specific to our breakup. I’ll call it the “Are you with this Steve guy now?” phase. And this must have lasted like, a half-hour. But she insisted she was not. She and Steve were just friends. And you know what? Maybe she was telling the truth. I had no proof to the contrary. All I had was a mountain of circumstantial evidence and a very strong hunch. We parted ways.
    That night, while everyone was celebrating the end of the quarter, I just sat in my room, alone. After several hours of wallowing in self-pity, I was interrupted by a knock at the door.
    “Dude, Michelle just showed up across the street on the back of some guy’s motorcycle.”
    I ran to the window and sure enough, there were Michelle and Steve, back from God knows where. Why did this guy have to live across the street from me? Hadn’t they tortured me enough? I watched Michelle follow Steve upstairs and disappear out of view. I wondered what the hell was going on up there. Were they really just friends? I’d never know.
    Or would I?
    I grabbed my binoculars and ran from room to room, looking for the perfect