Writer’s Corner: ‘How to be the Hot Ex-Girlfriend’ by Stephanie Dejak

The Writer’s Corner features poetry, essays, short stories, satire and various fiction and non-fiction from SCAD Atlanta students. To submit your own work for the Writer’s Corner, email features@scadconnector.com.

”How to be the Hot Ex-Girlfriend” by Stephanie Dejak

You can’t become the hot ex-girlfriend without having a boyfriend first. The key is to be
young enough to be impressionable, but old enough to feel like you’ve waited so long for the
right one. Sixteen is probably a good age. Make sure that he doesn’t go to the same high school
as you, and making sure that he’s at least a year older is even better. You need the slightest bit of
maturity, but more importantly, you need the space. You’ll thank me later.

Let him take you out for sno-cones on your first date in your hometown that’s too small.
Don’t let him pick you up. Lie to your mother and tell her that you’re meeting up with a friend
from middle school and that yes, you’ll tell her to tell her mother that she says hello. Offer to pay
for your own sno-cone but tell him thank you when he pays for yours. Let him taste some of the
passionfruit flavor that you ordered. Watch a grin form across his face as the ice melts onto his
tongue. Tell him that he’s unoriginal for ordering blue raspberry. Realize that you will do
anything to hear him laugh like that again. Do your best to hide your smile when he takes a
phone call and ends it with, “Mom, I’m with a girl right now. Okay, I’ll tell you all about it later.
I love you.”

Spend the rest of your summer in the passenger seat of his Acura. Spend your afternoons
on his shoulders in the park, struggling to set his hammock straps up as far as they’ll go on the
best tree that you can find. Nap with him while the hammock swings until the sun starts to set.

He’ll grow fond of you running your fingers through his almost-blonde hair. He’ll drive you
home with the windows down as the sky turns orange, and you’ll grow fond of him singing to
some Jack Johnson song quietly, so quietly that he doesn’t even think that you notice.
You’ll fall in love with him very quickly. He will fall in love with you very quickly, too.
It’s okay. This is a crucial step.

Your family will like him a lot. His mom will adore you. Celebrate an anniversary with
him. Celebrate another, and then another. You’ll dream about many more anniversaries and a
wedding when you’re out of college at twenty-two. You’ll begin to hope that one day your sons
will have his blue eyes instead of your green ones.

Leave for college, though. That is non-negotiable. It will break his heart, yes, but you
don’t have to break up with him. Maybe it would be better if you did, but you certainly don’t
have to. He’ll tell you that he can’t live without you. You’ll realize that you can’t live without
him either. College will become lonely, and you’ll move back home with hopes that being
around him will bring light back into your life again.

Decide to move to the beach after that. He will be excited that you’re bringing him with
you this time. Convince your dad that no, he won’t be living with you. You won’t be lying when
you tell him that he signed a lease somewhere else. You will only see his apartment a handful of
times, though.

Convince yourself that your new apartment won’t feel like home unless he’s
there. Clear out a space in your tiny closet for him and decide that he’ll sleep on the left side of
your bed every night. Wake up next to him with a smile on your face every morning.
You’ll feel yourself starting to grow up when you move here, even though everyone
around you will say that you’re still so young. Make new friends that aren’t his. Have a few sips
of alcohol. He’ll tell you that you’re changing. Dare him to leave, knowing that he won’t.

Your apartment will become suffocating. You’ll stop sleeping altogether because the
thought of sharing your bed with him will become unbearable. The two of you will begin to
bicker about everything. He’ll pick a fight about your room never being clean. You’ll pick a fight
about his friend constantly sleeping on your couch. Ask him why he doesn’t act like he cares
about you anymore. Wear short sequin shorts to work because you know that it’ll piss him off.
He will break up with you after nearly four years together in a text message. It will
shatter you. Understand that it must be this brutal, though. Because you would’ve stayed, even
through the torture.

Toss his toothbrush in the trash bin. Keep the Polaroid camera that you bought him for
Christmas that he only touched twice. Grab a pair of scissors and crop his favorite flannel at your
waist. Wear it home after a dip in the ocean as the summer breeze disappears.
Try not to wish for the toxic rekindling that you so desperately want with him. It will
sound better than the silence, yes, but you deserve better than this, even if you don’t believe it
yet. Don’t text him on your twenty-first birthday after too many shots of pink lemonade vodka,
begging him to pick you up where he’d once left you. Don’t call him eight times from the
bathroom of a nightclub. He will not answer.

Don’t respond to the “I miss you” text that his mom sends you after a while. You won’t
know what to say anyway. Use this as confirmation that you are the one that got away.
Realize that your identity goes so much deeper than being a girlfriend of his. Start writing
again, because he’s not around to find your notebook of poetic grievances that you would
otherwise keep so carefully hidden. At first, you won’t remember how you used to enjoy
spending your time before you gave all of yours to him. Remember that in time, you will find
these things again.

The new year will shift this for you, and you will glow from the inside as a result. Your
aura will radiate confidence and independence and eccentricity. This is when you will realize
that you are no longer the sad distant lover, but you are the hot ex-girlfriend.
Wear this realization on your sleeve but tuck the realization that you are outgrowing this
city away temporarily. Make your last summer at the beach your best one yet. Start accepting
invitations to parties that you know he’ll be at. Wreak havoc and cause some trouble. Play it off
as an accident, though. Shamelessly flirt with his new friends over beer pong and feel his eyes
burning towards you from across the kitchen. Stumble home with one of them and find your way
into their bed later, just because you know that he’ll hear about it. He does.

You will want him to hurt as badly as he hurt you the year before. Keep in mind that you
aren’t a bad person for feeling this way. Know that it will make for a fun story later. And as
twisted as it sounds, know that this is necessary for your subsequent god complex that will
emerge.

Do not be afraid of this god complex. Listen to her and love her fiercely. She will love
you right back. Infiltrate every space that you enter with nothing but superiority and grace.
Believe her when she tells you that you are the hottest creature to ever walk the planet. Cut out
anyone in your life that doesn’t support this fact. Know that it isn’t a sin to be self-absorbed.
Realize that maybe if it is, hell will probably be more fun anyway.

Reapply to the art school that you almost went to after high school. You’ll be grateful
that you didn’t go back then. You’ll be glad that you felt this heartache when you did. It will
make for a decent piece of writing one day.

Decide to move to a new city completely on your own, and the only lover that you’ll
bring with you this time is the one that stares back at you in the mirror. She will be your favorite
partner of yours yet.

Have a seat with her. Look at her in absolute awe. She will remind you that your favorite
version of yourself, this one, could never coexist with him in the way that you’d want them to.
Believe her. Realize that you would relive the pain of losing him all over again if it meant
that you could meet her sooner.

Be glad that she is here with you now and embrace her.