Did you say, after sex (which you proclaimed “amazing”), when I was naked and vulnerable, “Are you pregnant?”
Why was my first thought “I would feel hard, not squishy, if I were”?
Why did you put us in the position to have this conversation?
Me: I’m not pregnant. I’m heavy.
You: You’re not heavy . . .
Me: Yes. I am. Obviously.
Was it a good idea to try to change the conversation, which made me have to change it back?
Me: That really hurt me. And I’m going to hear that in my head for the foreseeable future.
You: Well, I just say whatever comes into my head. So I’ll probably make you angry a lot–I do that.
Umm, why didn’t you apologize?
Did you know I’d managed to bite my tongue so many times?
Why hadn’t I said, upon seeing it, that your dick was not as big as you’d claimed?
Why, by the way, did you, unprompted, warn me about how big it was?
Was it hope that you could get better with training that made me refrain from saying I was disappointed with your first efforts at pleasing me?
Was is that it would have been cruel?
Was it that I know that hearing certain things can shake one’s confidence for years to come?
Would I ever have told you that you aren’t as smart as you think you are? That it’s not your personal “secret” that you “figured out on [your] own” that a key to the GRE is to look for Greek and Latin roots in unfamiliar words?
Had you not considered that I have a PhD in English?
Have you heard of mansplaining?
Do you know how hard I worked not to laugh at you right then?
Why did you keep texting me after I politely declined to see you again?
Why did you think I needed to reconsider breaking it off?
Why were you so convinced that we had a great connection?
Have you figured out the big mistake by now?
Why did it take me months to write about this?
How many more months and years will I spend dreading what comes next–when that question, those words, will come, unbidden, as I make myself vulnerable with a new person?
How will I live with its echo in my head?
