The Flight Attendant (Part 3)

My ex-boyfriend pulled up to the airport to drop me off, got out to help me with my bags, and gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. When he stepped away from me, to get back into his car, my stomach dropped to the floor as I saw who was standing just a few feet away. Staring at me, looking crestfallen and like he’d just seen a ghost, was Ben. Damn, damn, damn. Really with my luck?! I stood there for a moment, debating whether or not to run as fast as possible in the other direction, but seeing Ben’s sad face I knew I had to deal with this situation. He came up to me rattling off questions I didn’t know quite how to answer, such as: What the hell is going on? Why wasn’t I out of the country like I said I would be? Who was the man that had just dropped me off? Did I realize how confused he was and that I was breaking his heart on his birthday? Oh my God…it was his birthday! Shit, shit, shit…I completely forgot! I’m a terrible, horrible person. I could not for the life of me think of how to rectify this situation. I told him I was so sorry that I was ruining his birthday, I'd never meant to hurt him. I tried explaining why I hadn’t called, trying to help him understand it was because I needed time to sort things out. Then I told him I had to go if I was going to catch my flight back to New York but we could talk later if he wanted to. He said he couldn’t believe that he had to feel this way for the next 5 hours without being able to talk to me more about it. I tried to give him a hug, which ended up being one sided since he wouldn’t hug me back, and boarded my flight feeling horrible about hurting Ben.

When I landed in New York, Ben had already left me 2 messages sharing some of his thoughts and insecurities which had now developed, and asked me to call him as soon as I landed. I procrastinated that conversation until I was back at the crash pad sipping a double vodka on the rocks. Ben and I proceeded to talk and argue for about 2 hours straight, the end result being I thought we needed to end things, and he was heartbroken about it.

Since we worked for the same company, and obviously had a good chance of running into each other, we remained as friendly as possible under the circumstances. That is until a couple of months down the road. Ben had a layover in New York and asked if I wanted to meet up for a drink while he was there. I met up with him and made the mistake of kissing him at the end of the night. To Ben this apparently meant we were back together. I heard through a mutual friend that’s what he was telling people. Since it was clear we couldn’t be just friends, I began to avoid Ben’s calls. I’ll admit, it wasn’t the best way of handling things, but I was out of ideas and avoidance seemed like the most appealing option.

I also began to rekindle a romance with the previously mentioned ex-boyfriend, the one who was present during the accidental birthday encounter. I had a California layover and invited him to come stay with me. I happened to be flying with my good friend Vince on that trip. Somehow Ben had heard I would be there, and decided he’d show up to confront me, since I wasn’t responding to his messages. I found this out while I was laying in bed next to my on-again-ex, and out in the hallway I heard my friend Vince on his cell phone, asking someone if they knew what room I was in. I pulled a sheet around me and peeked my head out the door. Vince saw me and asked me in a whisper who I had in the room with me. I told him who was in there and asked why we were whispering. He shook his head and told me Ben was down in the lobby trying to find out what room I was in. My eyes widened in slight panic but Vince told me not to worry. Ben had been trying to get the front desk to tell him my room number to no avail, and when he’d seen Vince had looked relieved, thinking he would point him in the right direction. Ben didn’t realize Vince couldn’t stand him and that there is no amount of money that could have swayed his loyalty to me. Vince had looked at him with a smirk, and told him it would be against the rules to give out that information, which frustrated Ben even further. Vince told me if it had been anyone other than me he would’ve loved to have given out the room number, grabbed a bowl of popcorn, and pulled up a chair to watch the show. I thanked him for fighting that cruel urge and not throwing me under the bus. I went back into my room and the hotel phone started ringing relentlessly. The front desk wouldn’t give Ben my room number, but they obviously had no problem connecting him to my room over and over again. After making up some sort of lame excuse to my on-again-ex about the disruption, I unplugged the phone.

After that day, Ben finally stopped calling. I heard about him from time to time through mutual friends, mostly about him hating me, and eventually that he had left the company. I was glad that we wouldn’t be running into each other at work anymore, but was also a little sad that we couldn’t have remained friends. He was part of a huge turning point in my life, and I would be forever thankful for his assistance in helping me find my new career. But it was time to move on to bigger and better things, because as it turns out, sometimes size does matter.