The Right Side of Vanishing

by Caterina Biondi

Image credit: DuoNguyen on Unsplash

Tuesday 3:00 PM

Hey x

Friday 7:00 PM

Babe do you wanna meet?

[time limited picture]

Thursday 8:00 PM

Hey b, what’s up? Why are you not replying?

We said no ghosting

We said no ghosting. Did we? I don’t remember it, but I can imagine I said it.

Dating in London is not the smoothest experience and at the time I was coming from some traumatic ghosting, actually, it still burns a bit. Although with him was different, I had been clear, I'm sure.

  It was one of those sweaty London June days. The kind of days that, even if rare, every Londoner finds quite hard to forget. Work laptop in my bag, I was travelling downtown in the direction of something which wasn’t work. The day after I was leaving for France, to join my colleagues at the festival. The office was empty and I - working from home - had decided to grant myself a well-deserved day off. The doors of the Ibis slid open, and the icy air hit me. Feeling uncomfortable I looked around to check if he was already there, trying not to cross my gaze with the hotel staff. Did they know? Maybe. Who checks in into a hotel for one day only, in the morning and without even a suitcase?

  There he was. Shorter than I expected, with wavey gelled long hair and a colourful oversized shirt. “Is it Robin?”

I smiled back at his perfect white teeth, “Yes, Jonah?” I guessed, effortlessly. It was funny to be next to him after many text messages, especially because of their mostly explicit content. I had chosen him exactly for that reason: he was handsome, muscular, sexy and he kept the relationship at the surface level. He had defeated even my most powerful tendency of trying to drive out the specific things that would make me fall in love with you in one second. Every conversation became sexual with him, and for the first time in my life, that was exactly what I was looking for. That’s not because I was trying some kind of weird masochistic ‘no love’ diet, but because I already had love in my life, it simply was thousands of kilometres away.

  “Rob, are you still with us? What’s up there?” Char was pointing at my phone with a frowny face “Are you ok?” I shrugged showing her the texts.

  It’s an ordinary Thursday night in Alvington Road Number 6. My flatmate Kat cooked her famous red pepper pasta — the creamiest pasta on earth — and for the occasion, we invited our friends Ade, Char and Alfie. We are all sitting in the kitchen around the messy table full of empty plates crowned with fugitive parmesan flakes. The joint’s smoke, imprisoned by the windows, locked to keep the cold outside, is floating on our heads creating a dense cloud.

  “It looks like you ghosted him, but I guess fair enough, he was clearly turning into a creep,” Char commented. “What’s that time-limited picture he sent?” she asked pointing at the unopened photo.

“Don’t know, I was afraid it was going to be a naked picture. It usually was…” she grinned, her eyes wide open.

“This guy, the audacity! So, what happened, why did you ghost him?” she asked, attracting the attention of the other people at the table “Are you guys talking of Jonah?” Kat joined in, pouring more wine into her glass “Yes, I was about to tell Char that I told him weeks ago that after my breakup with Tom, I was feeling down and I didn’t want to meet. And he tried to convince me so hard, telling me that we could be friends and, you know, then sending me dick pics”.

  All the time we were speaking, Alfie had placed some small nuggets of sticky weed in a grinder, and now he was slowly rolling its lid to cut them into tiny, even pieces. I have always appreciated how even the messiest man could become incredibly careful and neat when managing weed like it was a magic ritual of some kind.

“I think it makes sense he acted like this,” he says, slipping a paper out of its case. “From your point of view, it’s simple. You broke up with Tom, and your open relationship finished. Of course, you don’t want to see this random guy anymore. But from his point of view, you are still someone he had lots of fun with, and now you are also single.”

He spreads the powdery green pieces inside the paper and then wraps them smoothly in it, licking the joint on one side and then burning the paper in excess. I instinctively grab the lighter and start fidgeting with it, rubbing the metal wheel just to cause the spark.

“I think it would be ok for him to be confused if I hadn’t explained the situation. But I plainly told him I wasn’t feeling like having any dates since I had broken up.” I say, keeping the focus on the warm lighter wheel under my thumb. “I think he is a respectful man,” I add, “but I feel, because our encounter and conversations were merely sexual, he thinks then he has some kind of control or right over me.”

I feel a hot flush going up, streaming from my neck to my cheeks and I stare down at my hands, unable to keep eye contact with him. Kat, across the table, stretches her hand to gently tap my shoulder, I smile back at her considerate face, timidly trying to show me sympathy. Meanwhile, Alfie is back on his joint, snaps the lighter from me and starts burning the end of the slim paper cone stating, “I bet he thought that after you acted like a pornstar for him.” Char slaps the table, the dishes tremble and Kat jumps. “You dickhead,” she yells and stands up, ready to attack, her eyes full of hatred.

“Char, Char, stop!” I yell over her, pushing her down to contain her belligerent energy.

“I get it, that pisses you off, Char, but maybe Alfie’s point could be useful after all” Ade’s voice, quiet and poised, soothes everyone and all of a sudden, we are looking at him with only the burning spliff crackling in the background.

  “Maybe it could be useful to see things from his point of view”.

  *

I feel the drops of cold sweat still running down my face, my tense muscles slowly relaxing after another intense gym session. Today at work was long, I seriously needed this time to reset. I check my phone, no answer. The anonymous tabs from a variety of dating apps agitate a nauseous feeling in my stomach. Maybe I’m just hungry. The mandem is chilling tonight, no one is out, I might arrange something with that chick with long blonde hair then. A high-pitched laughter comes from the women's changing room.

Image credit: Denny Müller on Unsplash

The women’s toilet.

For some reason, I can’t explain. Maybe it’s the state of meditative relaxation my body and mind are in. I am brought back to an ancient memory. A little boy, sitting on a thick layer of toilet paper, his legs hanging without touching the wet tiled floor. His mum was there, standing in front of him, tapping her hand on her trousers, “Come on Jonah, are you done now?” she whispered without hiding the annoyance in her voice. What seemed an urgency one second before had passed, his body didn’t work anymore.

“Mom I can’t!”

She threw her arms in the air and then pulled him away from the toilet, “Ok, we are done here, come on”

“But mum, I really needed to go”

“You’re just wasting my time Jonah, your dad is waiting.”

She hastily buttoned his trousers and pushed the toilet paper inside the basin with the tip of her fingers. Out of the cubicle, a leggy woman was staring at the mirror and applying a dark powder on her face, tapping gently on her wrinkled cheeks. A little girl was standing next to her mum, both their hands placed under the dryer, she stared at him intensely as if to say, “What are you doing here boy?”

  “What took you so long?” His dad was waiting for them outside of the toilets, his body tense, like his voice.

“It was a false alarm,” she said shyly, probably hoping that it could just end there. But he didn’t let go.

“I told you we shouldn’t have stopped” Then he turned to the kid, “Do you want to be a burden? Is this what you want?”

Jonah wondered if it was his body that he needed to listen to or his parent's words. They were angry again, and they were angry at each other. Maybe a stomachache was better in the end, maybe they would've been happy at this point.

“Are you listening to me, Jonah? You need to grow up, be a man, and stop whining at every little thing.” His father’s big eyes were serious and watery like he was about to cry. But he never really cried, it was just the shadow of disappointment. Angry at them but also himself, he thought that was really hard to not whine sometimes.

  The last time I thought about my parents was with her. I was lying on the polyester sheets of the cheap hotel, my stomach full of Burger King, typing naked on my work laptop. She was sitting on the other end of the bed — in her underwear and a light linen shirt — avoiding gazing at the confidential data on my laptop.

“They separated when I was little, my mum is Filipino, but she stayed here, she wanted us to get a better education. My dad went back to Jamaica.”

She moved around on the tough bed and crossed her legs to find a comfortable position “Do you guys have a good relationship?”

I smiled politely as to excuse a hard truth. When was the last time I spoke with them? Maybe they called me on my birthday? “We don’t speak much.”

She was staring at me, with those big grey eyes shining, genuinely curious about my story “I am sorry,” she said, and I accepted it, thinking about our naked bodies hitting rhythmically on each other. There wasn’t pity in her voice, just the sadness of someone who doesn’t understand what it means to have missed your first class on how to love.

I glance at my phone. My body is cooling down from the physical activity, and I feel the need for some action. At home, Chow-Mein leftovers are waiting in my fridge. On the screen, a bunch of texts: I am having a conversation with myself in the chat with Robin. I recall that episode of Friends in which Rachel is playing “hard-to-get” to seduce Tate Donovan. This could be the case. She always seemed quite happy to speak, she even agreed to be friends, and also, didn't she say she was never going to ghost anyone? So, there must be another reason.

Wednesday 9:00 PM

Rob, why did you ghost me? That’s all I want to know

*

“Good morning.” I smile at a sleepy Kat sitting at the kitchen table in front of a plate full of crumbs, reminiscence of her bread, butter and jam breakfast. Instinctively, I place my hand on the kettle, glad to feel the hot metal on my palm. Absent-mindedly, I mix the boiled water with a couple of spoons of instant coffee and a thick white foam starts floating on the dark surface.

“Jonah texted again”

“Jonah? Who’s that again?”

“That guy who kept texting.”

“Oh, the harassing man! Still him? It’s been months.”

“Yeah, but I feel like his last message is more genuine. Like he’s just trying to get what happened.” My toast jumps up and I start sliding a nut of soft butter on its crunchy surface.

“Have you thought of blocking him?” she says, now rinsing her plate under the sink’s hot stream of water.

“I hate blocking people, I find it so juvenile, it’s a bit against my all ‘communication is always better’ principle.” I mumble, munching on my buttered bread and then add, “If I don’t explain myself, how can I believe I am in the right? Maybe it’s better for everyone if I explain to him this is not normal behaviour.”

Kat looks at me, smiling ironically, “You know what’s the question I always ask myself in these cases: ‘Am I his mum?’, and the answer, I’m telling you, is going to be ‘No!’. You don’t have any duty to educate this man, Rob.”

  She was right, I knew that. Maybe my tendency to make everything and everyone better was creeping in. Although, I couldn't help but tend for a last attempt at clarity.

Thursday 10:30 PM

Hi Jonah, I understand that I didn't tell you that I wanted to end contacts. But first of all, I told you I didn’t want to fuck you anymore, and you didn't respect my boundaries, kept hinting and talking about sex. Second of all, I told you I broke up with my boyfriend, and I wasn’t feeling like meeting anyone, but you kept insisting. I was dealing with my own shit, I couldn’t deal with your shit. I am sorry I wasn’t direct, but I don’t think I was unclear. Also, the fact you kept calling and texting, and stepping over my boundaries over and over wasn’t helpful. I respect you, and this is why I am writing this text, I want you to have the situation clear.

Thursday 10:45 PM

Thank you, Rob, that’s all I wanted to know. I just wanted clear communication from you. I’m sorry I overstepped your boundaries. I texted and called because you told me you wouldn’t ghost anyone, so it left me confused. Anyway, I hope you are ok, I respect you too. I’m sorry if I caused you any hurt, I had a lot of fun with you and would never wanted things to end like this.

***

Caterina Biondi

Caterina Biondi is a London-based fiction and poetry writer who explores daily life and gender issues. Her short stories draw from personal experience, promoting feminist values through a self-aware realism. Her poem “room paralysis, sleep paralysis, life paralysis” — about overcoming trauma by reframing the body in space — was selected from over 1,500 entries and published in Heroica’s Poetry Anthology. Her short story "How to die on a sunny day" appeared in the feminist journal The Anti-Misogyny Club. The piece explores the everyday risks of being a woman, so common and internalised that many simply learn to live with them. With ironic dramatisation, the story invites readers to reflect on the unease and danger that often pervade women’s lives.