What screams “I’m deeply insecure”?

Theodore’s Self-Sabotage and the Ultimate Betrayal

My ex broke into my apartment, used my spare key to steal my dad’s ashes and spell “esollet” on my wall with them. Then told me I was crazy for thinking it was him. I didn’t say a word.

“You probably staged it yourself for attention.”

That was 4 days ago.

To cope with my dad’s death, I became a little quirky. He died in a sudden car accident. So, to keep his memory alive, I always repaired something in someone’s home when I visit. I know it sounds a little weird, but my dad was a handyman. When you fix a home, you fix a heart, he’d always say. I was like Bob the Builder, except a girl and 10 times hotter. JK Lol.

So, when I first met my boyfriend’s roommates, I brought my toolbox. We had been dating for 3 years. I had never gone over to his place because one of his roommates was a DJ, and I get overstimulated pretty easily. But now, that friend had finally moved out.

The first time I came over, I fixed the wobbly table in the kitchen. I knew I had gotten on his roommate’s good side when they all agreed that I was a keeper. Friday became our assigned date day.

Every week I fixed something small: the couch leg that was a little shorter than the others, reattached a broken door handle, and remounted a curtain rod that was hanging on by a thread.

I guess my boyfriend already explained the reasoning behind it because they never asked. But they sure as heck thanked me for it. Sometimes in the form of a home-cooked meal. Other times in the form of letting me go on ox whilst knowing that I’m unapologetically a Taylor Swift girl.

So on Memorial weekend, we both had time off, and he stayed at my place. The next morning, he said he didn’t want to say goodbye to me yet and asked me to go to his. I smiled and right before we left the house, I grabbed my toolbox.

Suddenly, my boyfriend lost it. He asked why I was so set on publicly humiliating him. Just before I could respond, he went on a 5-minute long rant about how I was emasculating him. He claimed all his friends joked that I was a try for doing the manly jobs.

I used his argument against him and said that I was helping to make his apartment a home, which is a universally feminine trait. But then he came up with a new reason. He told me I was trauma dumping and ruining the vibe. Because whenever I fix something, it reminded him and his friends about my dad dying.

I just sighed and told him to go without me. I wasn’t about to beg him or his shitty friends to let me do free work for them. Like, just because my dad is dead doesn’t mean I have daddy issues, lol. When he got home, he told me he was sorry for being so harsh. I’m not going to apologize for doing free work, Theodore.

I thought that would be enough to snap him out of whatever was going on, but it wasn’t. He said that he had told all his friends that I refused to listen to him. They all blocked me on Instagram and unanimously agreed that he had to break up with me. I asked if he defended me, and he shook his head.

“No, Amelia, they’re right.”

He left right after.

As I lay alone in bed that night, I noticed I had lost four followers on Instagram. Except he only had three roommates. So, I checked my boyfriend’s account and saw that he had unfollowed me, too. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I saw that he had followed 30 new girls with a verification tick.

None of them even followed him back. He had all their recent posts liked. I should have felt hurt, but I wasn’t because more than anything, I was embarrassed for me and for him.

For the entire week, he was posting videos of him out clubbing. In one of them, a girl was even grinding on him while he slapped her butt. That broke me. Neither of us texted each other until Friday morning when he asked if he could come over. I responded with a dry K, and he just liked my message.

As soon as I let him in the door, he finally spilled the truth. He told me that he took his friend’s phones when they weren’t looking and blocked me without them knowing. Apparently, after the first time I had come over, one of his friends, Andy, commented on how lucky he was to have me.

I hadn’t even spoken to Andy, so I was super surprised to hear this. But then he kept going.

“And he’ll never admit it, but I know he wants you.”

“And I thought telling you directly would boost your ego.”

“So, I just wanted to make sure that you never came over again.”

Apparently, all those videos were just to make me jealous. So, I could feel the same way he did. I laughed in his face and told him to get the f out of my apartment. He was giving sassy men apocalypse. So, I did what my dad would have wanted and I bit back.

I texted Andy on my spam and told him me and my BF broke up. One thing led to another, and I ended up back at his place. He was nothing like Theodore. He actually gave me aftercare and made me feel special. I really liked him.

The next morning, I was wearing his t-shirt as we ate breakfast together. That’s when Theodore walked into the kitchen. His face went white and he dropped his Android phone on the floor. I smiled at him.

“Andy’s making eggs, sunny side up.”

Theodore walked out. Me and Andy burst into laughter.

I thought Theodore was finally out of my life. But I was wrong because 2 days later when I got home from work, I saw my apartment had been broken into. My dad’s ashes were smeared in writing across the wall. It spelled out the word esollet in gray dust that used to be my father.

I just stood there frozen. My legs wouldn’t move. I couldn’t even cry. Someone had taken the most sacred thing I owned and used it to hurt me. The urn lay empty on its side beneath a horrible word. I called the cops immediately, my hands shaking so badly I could barely dial.

They came and took photos and asked me a bunch of questions. I told them about Theodore and our breakup, about his jealousy and the blocked numbers. They wrote everything down. But said without proof it was him, there wasn’t much they could do. The officer, an older woman with kind eyes, suggested I talk to my landlord about security footage.

I spent the rest of the night cleaning, using a small brush and dustpan. I couldn’t leave my dad like that. I carefully collected what I could and put it back in the urn, whispering apologies to him the entire time.

Some was lost forever in the carpet fibers, ground in by whoever had done this. That hurt the most. My dad, who spent his life building and fixing, reduced to dust in apartment carpet. I held the urn and cried until morning.

I called my building’s landlord first thing the next morning, my hands still trembling as I dialed his number. Mr. Peterson was this older guy who always wore the same brown cardigan no matter the weather. The thing had patches on the elbows and smelled faintly of mothballs and pipe tobacco.

He came up to look at the damage within the hour. Took one glance at the wall and shook his head like I was a child who’d spilled juice on the carpet. The way his eyes narrowed behind his wire-rimmed glasses made my stomach drop. He said since there was no forced entry, I probably did it myself for attention. My mouth fell open so wide I probably could have caught flies.

I showed him the police report, the official document with the case number and everything. But he just shrugged and said, “Young people do crazy things after breakups.” He actually used air quotes around breakups, like my relationship hadn’t been real.

He left me standing there with cleaning supplies in my hands. The chemical smell of bleach making my eyes water. That’s when it hit me like a physical blow to the chest. Theodore still had my spare key. I’d given it to him months ago when I had the flu and needed someone to bring me soup.

He’d been so caring then, showing up with homemade chicken noodle and crackers. He was sitting on my bedroom floor, reading me funny tweets while I dozed. I never got it back. The realization made me feel violated all over again.