✨ What I Felt Then
At the time, I thought we had reached a clearer understanding.
Jerry had finally read the writing. We had talked about honesty, sexual transparency, and what I needed to know before consenting. He had agreed. He had said he appreciated the conversation and looked forward to more of the same.
So when I did not hear from him afterward, I tried not to make too much of it. That was something I was very good at by then: not making too much of things.
When I got the job, I wanted to tell him. He knew I had interviewed for it. He knew how much stress I was experiencing in my current role. When he responded right away and sounded happy for me, it felt good. For a moment, I thought maybe we would celebrate.
Then the plan appeared and disappeared almost immediately.
I was confused, but I let it go. Then more silence. Then almost-plans. Then changed plans. Then jokes. Then sex talk. Then nothing again.
By mid-October, I was still trying to stay light. I liked that our conversations could move from a bruised toe to time, parallel realities, and the speed of the earth.
Those exchanges made the connection feel alive, even when he was not actually present.
But then I had a truly awful day at work. I am usually good at taking care of myself when I am upset. I know how to regulate. I know how to reach out to friends. I know how to get through a hard moment without expecting one person to rescue me. I had learned healthy coping strategies after years of therapy and Al Anon.
But that day hit me hard. And for the first time, I did not just want Jerry.
I needed uncomplicated comfort. I needed a hug.
That should not have been too much.
🧩 What Was Actually Happening
What was actually happening was that the agreement from the previous chapter was not turning into steadiness.
Jerry had seemed to say the right things in the moment, but afterward the pattern continued. He disappeared, reappeared, suggested plans, changed plans, turned frustration into sexual teasing, and let long gaps sit between moments of warmth.
I was still interpreting each exchange individually. He had reasons. Some of those reasons may have been real. But the pattern was real too.
🎯 Information Control – I still did not know what was actually happening in Jerry’s life. I knew pieces: grief, exhaustion, plans, possible travel, his room, his kids, his shifting availability. But I did not know what else he was doing, who else he was seeing, or what information was being withheld. Later, I would suspect that the vague explanations around the night I needed him were not the full truth.
🎯 Calibration of Intimacy – Jerry gave enough contact to keep the connection alive: quick warmth when I got the job, sexual teasing when plans fell apart, concern about my toe, a sunset video, a multiverse thread, a heart reaction, and a comment about kissing my injury. The attention arrived in fragments, but those fragments were emotionally charged enough to keep me reaching.
🎯 Boundary Erosion by Degrees – The boundary issue was not only sexual by this point. It was also emotional. I kept adjusting to less than I needed. Plans changed, silence stretched, and I learned to accept little pieces of contact as evidence that something was still there.
🎯 Performative Vulnerability – Jerry’s grief and exhaustion made him seem fragile too. I knew about his military friend’s death. I knew that had affected him. I knew he was carrying loss. That made it harder to ask for anything, even when I was the one in distress.
🎯 Tailored Performance – He could still become the version of himself that reached me: funny, wounded, cosmic, sexual, tender, dad-like, serious, fragile. The shifts kept him compelling. They also made it harder to hold him accountable to one consistent pattern.
🎯 Rapid Intimacy – Even without seeing each other, the messages moved quickly between injury, sex, fear, longing, grief, time, multiverse, parenting, and emotional need. It felt intimate because so much emotional material was moving between us. But intimacy in messages is not the same thing as care in practice.
🌀 Why It Worked
It worked because the connection did not feel empty.
That is the part that can be hard to explain from the outside. Jerry was not ignoring me completely. He was funny. He was responsive sometimes. He remembered my toe. He loved my sunset video. He joined me in the strange existential language we both enjoyed. He flirted. He made me laugh.
The problem was not that there was nothing there. The problem was that what was there was inconsistent and unreliable.
It also worked because I was still trying to be fair. I knew he had grief in the background. I knew he had instability. I knew he had reasons to be overwhelmed. I did not want to punish him for being human.
And because I had not needed him before, I did not yet know what would happen when I did.
Until October 20, I had mostly wanted him. I wanted sex, connection, conversation, tenderness, and time. I wanted to be wanted by him.
That day was different. That day I needed comfort.
I asked for something very small. And even that became too much.
🌕 What I Know Now
Now I understand that wanting someone and needing them reveal different truths.
Wanting Jerry let him remain exciting, complicated, wounded, desirable, and inconsistent. Needing him showed me what his inconsistency actually cost.
He did not have to fix my job. He did not have to solve my problem. He did not have to perform some grand act of devotion.
He only had to care enough to show up, or at least to check on me afterward.
He did not.
That told me something I did not want to know.
I also understand now that I had been mistaking emotional texture for emotional reliability. The sunset videos, the multiverse talk, the sexual jokes, the concern about my toe, the “big toe” kiss, the references to gentleness — all of that created texture. It made the relationship feel intimate and alive.
But when I needed actual care, texture was not enough.
The fact that he could sound tender did not mean he was dependable.
The fact that he could talk about honesty did not mean he was honest.
The fact that he could say he wanted me close did not mean he would be there when I reached for him.
By the end of that conversation, I was not just sad.
I was furious.
I had asked so little of him. Somehow, it still felt like too much.
➡️ What Happens Next
After October 20, I no longer felt only confused.
I felt hurt. I felt angry.
And for the first time, I began to think this might really be the end.
It was not the end.
The next time I saw Jerry, he would suddenly decide to disclose information he had been withholding for much longer than I could ever have imagined.
After months of saying as little as possible, after agreeing to honesty and sexual transparency, after letting me believe I understood the situation well enough to consent, he would finally open a door he had kept closed.
It would rock me. I had believed we were finally dealing in the truth.
And once again, the new information would not make everything simple.
What I thought was the end was only a beginning.
And for the first time, but not the last, I would find myself asking specific questions:
Who is Jerry?
Who is Jack Stallings?