By Theresa Ward

Have you ever been dumped under water?  I’m not referring to any mafia exploits or navy seal rescue missions, although I imagine those would also make for an excellent story.  No, I mean have you ever had someone break up with you while you were physically submerged in water?  Water has long been used in literature and films to symbolize ambiguity:  the ability to give and take life at a moment’s notice.  Unfortunately, this is where I found myself three years ago, in limbo somewhere in between both extremes, while deep in the hot water of a pink seventies bathtub in a small seaside town. 

No one ever said breaking up is easy, but if they sit women in water to soothe the process of childbirth, you would think it could help ease the pain of a broken heart.  It was late February, and the fog’s familiar chill had made its way into our small beach home, but this wasn’t the only chill wafting down the hallways and nestling into our otherwise warm bed.  There had been a general cooling down period of our relationship since she had become his friend, and I was no fool.  Well, at least I was a strong fool:  one who was ready to hang up her Jester hat and say, “enough is enough.”   But isn’t it funny, that just when we make up our minds to end something and start over, the other person beats us to the punch, forever denying us of that victor’s cup, and in my case, a decent, relaxing soak.

I lay in the tub, my feet propped on the faucet since, apparently, people were shorter in the seventies, thinking of all the reasons I had to get out.  1.) I am young, and my energy should be spent elsewhere.  2.) There are plenty of men who don’t take breakfast dates with other women and then lie about it or who will pick you up when your car breaks down on a mountain pass instead of playing tennis with their fathers.  3.) I have my dignity.  4.) I could finally have my bed to myself, again, and goodbye to early mornings listening to him fart and laugh at himself in the shower.  It was settled.  This was it.  Then what happens?  I hear him walk into the room and all resolve seeps down the drain – the same one that is clogged with his curly, unruly hair.  Great hair, I might add.  Perfect for pulling and running fingers through…  See what I mean?  Resolve like a whirlpool circling down the drain.  Schwoooop, gurgle, gurgle, schwoop.

I hear his voice calling me from the other room.  I’m in the dark, only a candle lit and the French bathroom doors propped open, letting in some of the grey foggy light from the bedroom.  We start to argue about something ridiculous.  I’m quick for a fight since he is yelling at me from another room (my pet peeve) while I’m trying to take a damn bath.  The water eases my stressed muscles, while the arguing tenses them back, again.  I turn on the hot water, hoping more heat will remedy the situation and fight the cold coming from the other room.  I shut the sliding shower doors, which is my passive aggressive way of saying, “shop closed, beat it.”

Just as I’m about to slip back into daydreams, one last, defiant yelp echoes from the bedroom, the place where I first fell in love with him, where I lost my virginity to him on my twentieth birthday and where I’d hoped we would spend many more nights together taking turns watching each other sleep, and pummels me back to reality.  “Well, maybe we should break up, then.”  Pure eloquence.  Of course, I’ve heard this empty threat before.  It’s the “break glass in case of emergency” final stab.  I respond with a resilient, “Fine,” then wait for him to apologize and take a hungry look at me naked in the bath.  Our love may have cooled, but our sex drive was still as hot as the bath water.  I hear his footsteps come into the bathroom.  I know my man.  He opens the sliding glass door.  “I think we really should.  I’m leaving tonight.  I’ll spend the night at my dad’s.”  Short, stabbing, abrupt sentences that cut easily through water.  I was the Marion Crane to his Norman Bates, grabbing at the wounds, hoping they weren’t real, or that I could miraculously stop the bleeding.

I sink lower into the tub, wishing I could float through the drain, down the nearby river and into the Pacific just blocks away.  I could float for days, winding up on the warm sand of a Mexican beach awaiting my new life.  I know this is right, though.  I’ve known it for months; maybe even since the day we met when I told a friend of mine that I just didn’t see us having a real future together.  Three years later, and I should have listened to my younger self.  He grabs the towel off the rack and slowly picks me up out of the water.  As I begin to rise, the water level drops and the bathtub seems almost saddened by my sudden absence.  “Poor bathtub,” I think to myself.  It didn’t see this coming.  Then a small glimmer of absolute freedom ignites within me.  Oh my God, I am free!  I wonder if this is what it felt like when the Priest pulled me from the water at my baptism.  A cleansing euphoria brought on only by the excitement of change and a new beginning.  Oh my God all mighty, I am free!  No more lonely nights spent crying over his harsh words and actions, no more worrying constantly about the state of my relationship, no more focus on someone other than myself and not nearly as worthy, no more rejection, no more addictive pain, no more pretending it is okay.  Hallelujah, I am free! 

I am almost giddy with excitement, but I contain it for his sake and the sake of the moment.  He hugs me, wrapping the towel tightly around my body to keep me from shivering.  Suddenly, I realize just how naked I am before him.  I resent that he is fully dressed; that he was the one with enough courage to make the decision, and that I am here before him as helpless as the baby in the baptismal water.  And just like that baby, I begin to cry.  He kisses me, and I melt.  I want to crawl back into the bath, shut the door and not come out until my skin is so pruney it practically falls off the vine.  This is what it is like to be dumped under water.  A drowning followed by a light at the end of the tunnel followed by the fear of new surrounding.  Take me back to the water.  It is warm and safe there. 

He grabs his bags and leaves.  I’m left dripping wet, still clinging to the towel that we used to share after long, hot showers together when we would help wash the sand off each other’s backs.  Within minutes and without thinking, I’m off.  I gather every thing that belongs to him, put it in plastic bags and collect them on the front patio.  The giant black bags stacked one on top the other look like a funeral pyre.  And I suppose they are.  I take every picture and memento and hide them in a drawer in the garage.  I lock the garage and then deadbolt it for extra measure, just in case something wants to be let back in.  I finally remember to drain the bathtub.  I only lived in that beach house for nine more months, when the memories and ghosts of first love proved to be too persistent to stay, and I never, never, never took a bath in that pink seventies bathtub ever again.  From then on I was standing up straight and tall in the damn shower.

About the Author: Theresa Ward

Theresa Ward was born and raised in northern California, where she spent her upbringing penning mystery stories and writing and directing her own one-act plays.  These creative endeavors followed her into film school at the University of California, Santa Cruz where she fell madly in love with screenwriting.  Theresa currently works in Los Angeles as a freelance writer, specializing in screenwriting, commercial treatments, script coverage/doctoring, and Internet virals and is the LA Frugal Living Examiner for Examiner.com.  When she’s not writing, her time is spent traveling, hiking and singing in the shower. 

To follow Theresa’s blog: http://theblackheartchronicles.blogspot.com/ 

LA Frugal Living Column: http://www.examiner.com/x-4969-LA-Frugal-Living-Examiner

Commercial Treatment Samples: http://www.tellavisionagency.com/