Look Who Decided to Call

There are few things quite as efficient as an ex appearing on your phone.

You can be having a perfectly ordinary afternoon, thinking about lunch, laundry, whether that potted plant is dying or merely seeking attention, when suddenly his name appears on the screen and an entire relationship that had been packed away, labeled and pushed to the back of your emotional attic comes tumbling down the stairs.

Oh.

Him.

Five minutes ago, you were not thinking about him. You were looking for the charger.

Then he calls.

And somewhere in the distance, an abandoned carnival comes back to life.

The Carnival Reopens

You know this carnival. You have been here before.

The little bulbs flicker above the entrance. Music begins playing from somewhere slightly warped. The Ferris wheel gives an elderly creak. And there he is again, behind the striped booth, smiling as though nobody remembers why the place closed.

You are not going in, obviously.

You are merely looking.

This distinction feels extremely important for about forty seconds.

Perhaps you answer because you are curious. Curiosity is an innocent little creature and has never caused trouble anywhere.

Or perhaps you let it ring, which is technically very dignified, although you may then spend the next eleven minutes staring at the missed call as though it contains classified information.

Why did he call?

Why now?

Has he been thinking about you?

Has he finally realized that losing you was the great romantic catastrophe of his adult life?

Or was he bored in traffic?

We dislike the traffic theory. It has no violins.

Then the message arrives.

“Hey. Just thought of you.”

Wonderful.

Four words, and the carnival now has fireworks.

Of Course You’re Only Looking

An ex has one enormous advantage over everyone else: he already knows the back door gate.

He remembers the nickname and he knows which story will make you laugh. He can also say, “Do you remember when—” and there goes another ride.

Of course you remember when.

The remarkable part is how casually he returns. A man who once could not explain what was happening between you can suddenly locate your phone number with breathtaking precision.

Months may have passed. Entire seasons may have changed.

And yet there he is with, “Hey, how have you been?” as though he merely stepped into another room and has now returned with the olives.

Soon you are laughing.

This is nice.

Possibly a little too nice.

Because nobody is cancelling plans tonight. Nobody is being vague about Saturday. Nobody is making you wonder how one person can be “really busy right now” for the entire month of March.

All the inconvenient parts of the relationship have mysteriously failed to attend.

Nostalgia is running the rides and memory is an excellent decorator.

It removes several ugly chairs, sweeps the awkward bits into another room and presents a relationship that once exhausted you as a charming little place you used to visit in summer.

The past has a very generous editing department. It keeps the kiss in the doorway and somehow misplaces the three weeks of confusion that followed it.

And because you already know each other, the conversation slips along beautifully. There is no introductory material about siblings, jobs and whether either of you enjoys hiking. You can go directly to familiar laughter and old stories, which feels wonderfully natural because, of course, it is natural.

You have done this before.

Then comes the dangerous little thought: maybe we were actually good together?

Ah.

The carnival photographer has taken the picture.

Of course you were good together in some ways. Most relationships do not begin with a woman thinking, “What a deeply unsuitable man. I must give him eighteen months.”

There were lovely parts. That is how people acquire exes instead of simply acquiring strange anecdotes.

But give nostalgia twenty pleasant minutes and it becomes ambitious.

Maybe he has changed.

Maybe you have changed.

Maybe this is one of those stories where two people wander away, become wiser and eventually find their way back to one another.

Possible.

So is winning a stuffed giraffe by throwing a ring over a bottle.

People do it.

But perhaps inspect the size of the ring.

Then the Carnival Closes Again

Eventually, the call ends.

The music stops. The Ferris wheel slows. The little bulbs go quiet one by one.

And there you are again, standing in your kitchen with the same plant, the same laundry and your phone in your hand, except a man who had been sitting quite comfortably in the past has somehow moved three chairs closer to the present.

Nothing has technically happened.

He called.

You talked.

That is all.

And yet, in twenty minutes, the old carnival reopened, started the rides and persuaded you to reconsider a man you had previously managed to survive quite nicely without.

That is the strange power of an ex.

He does not always need to come back.

Sometimes he only has to ring the bell at the gate.

The alarming part is how quickly we remember where the ticket booth is.