Free I Like You Just the Way I Am by Jenny Mollen Page B

was, we both had new lives. My idealism about our eternal bond as friends was gone, as was his need to pretend things would ever be the same. They weren’t. And that was okay … ish.

    My Future Husband’s Ex-Girlfriend
    Lance’s refusal to worship me from afar forever consumed so much of my time that I didn’t get the chance to properly dissect Jason’s ex until we were engaged. When I did, I discovered something startling and yet completely appropriate. Jason’s ex was still in love with him and wanted him back. But she wasn’t the only one. Jason’s family wanted the same thing.
    While Lance dealt with our breakup by shacking up with the bizarro me and not RSVPing to my wedding, Jason’s ex—let’s call her Baz—dealt with their breakup by spiraling into a mild depression. She made a Web series about how he broke her heart. She wrote blog posts about him. She even made sure to call his nephews on their birthdays (something I still don’t do, because I don’t care about kids’ birthdays).
    I eventually met his mother on a trip to the Biggs household in New Jersey.
    “So what am I supposed to do with all these Christmas gifts I bought for Baz? We were extrememly close,” she announced like a hormonal thirteen-year-old girl, refusing to make direct eye contact with me.
    At first, I found his mother’s attachment sort of charming. I knew I was the score of the century and that all parents love me, so I didn’t mind indulging her anguish.
    “I’d send them to her,” I said earnestly.
    Jason shot me a look.
    “I mean, if someone had presents for you, wouldn’t you want them? It’s not like you got her a bunch of framed pictures of her and Jason.” I plopped down next to her on the couch like we’d known each other for fifteen years.
    Her body language said it all. She hated me. And the gifts were most definitely framed pictures of Baz and Jason.
    From what I gathered, Baz was always clinging on to Jason for dear life. The circumstances under which they got together were traumatic, and Jason’s white knight syndrome kept him in the relationship roughly two years too long. I have to assume that Baz knew it wasn’t going to work out, because I don’t believe people get sideswiped in relationships. It’s always just a matter of what someone is willing to see and what someone is willing to ignore. I think we are all guilty of overlooking things if it suits our own agenda. But whenever we do, we are always setting ourselves up for disappointment.
    So, as bad as I could have felt for Baz, I really didn’t. She wasn’t an idiot. In an effort to self-preserve, she overlooked the bad and embedded herself in his family. She was a “yes woman” who went along with anything Jason wanted (including his occasional desire to hit up a Chuck E. Cheese’s on the way to LAX) and voiced concern only when he wouldn’t let her move in with him.
    “You know, only a woman who isn’t secure with you would feel the need to kiss your mother’s ass so hard,” I told Jason as I tossed one of his mom’s cats across the room like a Frisbee. I stared up at a five-by-seven of Baz and Jason’s mom in Mouseketeer ears, still hanging above the mantel. “That seems healthy.”
    Jason conceded, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.
    On the last night of our visit, Jason’s older sister Holly pulled me into a coffin-sized laundry room to have a chat out of earshot of their mom. She sat opposite me and took a deep breath.
    “I just had a baby so I’m really emotional right now,” she started.
    Not sure if she was going to offer me a joint or ask if I wanted to try her breast milk, I kept my mouth shut.
    “I still talk to Baz,” she confessed in a wispy voice that belonged on someone less than half her age.
    “Okay.” I was bummed she didn’t have any weed.
    “She knows you and Jason are engaged and she said that out of respect, she thinks it’s best that she and I stop talking. I just can’t imagine not having