Running for Home - 22. November 5, 2021

November 05, 2021

I can’t believe this. Dom is taking me to court. He’s taking me to goddamn court! The bastard is claiming palimony, something I didn’t even know existed. I had to look it up. It’s apparently the same as alimony, but for cohabiting unmarried couples that break up where one of them is basically a dependent. No, complete bullshit is what it is. It only exists in a few goddamn states because it’s an idiotic idea, and Cali-fucking-fornia is one of them. Fuck.

I never wanted to live in L.A., you know. San Francisco would have been nicer – hell, a lot of places in the Bay Area would have been nicer – but I could never live there. I have too many bad memories and mixed emotions related to the Alcatraz disaster and everything leading up to it. I still wanted to live somewhere on the Left Coast, somewhere cool and interesting and cultured, like Portland or maybe Seattle. But no, fucking Dom wanted to live in L.A. Portland was for hippies, he said. Seattle for yuppies. San Francisco was for total faggots, not like us. And San Diego? I don’t even remember why he refused to live there. Probably something stupid about Mexicans and illegal immigrants. So sayeth the Greek to the dual-citizen Aussie-American. Actually, he originally wanted us to live in Las Vegas, but I kyboshed that pretty quick. I’m glad I did. He probably would have gambled away even more than the little money he did make and I would have been completely on the hook with supporting us and dealing with his debts.

I’m so glad I had the foresight to never open up a joint bank account or credit card with him. I just gave him money to deal with minimums on his own low-limit credit card and money to buy groceries or little things for the apartment as needed. For the last six months we were together, he couldn’t even handle that. He’d spend that money on booze and cigarettes and god only knows what else, so I stopped giving him money and bought groceries on my own. I tried to do the shopping with him so he’d at least have some say in what we were eating, but it was an exercise in futility because he always wanted to get shit that was out of our budget or just junk food that neither of us needed. So I bought the groceries on my own, the cleaning supplies on my own, shopped for new clothes on my own, did the laundry and chores on my own, did fucking everything on my own while still trying to cobble together time to make progress with my writing, whether it was short pieces for newspapers, longer pieces for magazines or any of the novels I was trying to work on.

I did all of that, and I was too stupid to put an end to it. Too stupid to admit that there were some major problems festering. Too stupid to kick him out. Too stupid to let go, to cut his parasitic ass out of my life. Too stupid to stop pretending he loved me.

He resented it, too. All of it. He resented me for having some success when he could barely find work because he fucked up and went to prison. He resented that I was basically giving him an allowance like he was a little kid because that was the only way I could make sure things stayed within budget and we’d have enough to pay for our decent apartment, healthy food on the table, a night or two out a month (that I got to enjoy, anyway), and any other incidentals.

And me? I was desperate to be loved, to have someone in my life, to have some piece of stability that would weather the time. I let my desperation and my stupidity take control, and now all I have left is resentment, anger and grief. I resent that Dom was so selfish and so lazy and so fucking uncaring that he just took everything from me and didn’t even try to get back up on his own two feet. I resent that he used me for so long, cheated on me, and then walked out when he knew I was finally running too low on money to sustain the lifestyle that we’d enjoyed to that point.

The anger and grief, though, those were mostly directed at myself. Why was I so stupid? Why did I stay with him after he was such an idiot and got himself sent to jail again? Why did I let him back in when he finally was let out? I have this deep ache, this deep angry sadness inside me that makes me want to scream, to lash out. I wasted so much time on that motherfucker. I wasted so much time on him, I gave him everything, and now that he’s finally out of my life – of his own fucking volition, I might add – he wants to take me to the cleaners, suing me for god only knows how much of my money.

He must have found out, somehow, that I’d moved back to Xavier’s and taken this job. He must have guessed they’d be paying me good money. Why else would he be suing? I didn’t have any money before I left L.A. But I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I didn’t give out my new contact information to anyone other than my agent, my publisher, and my bank. I wanted a clean break. I didn’t have any real friends there, no one I really gave a fuck about. Why would that fucker have been looking into me, looking into me enough to know this?

As much of a douchebag as he’s been, I never thought he would stoop this low.

I need to get a lawyer, stat.