The hot chocolate mix you gave me ran out today, and it sent me into a pile of tears. It’s not just because it was Dandelion hot chocolate, which is very expensive and which I don’t have room in my budget to develop a habit for. No, it’s because it represents the fact that so much time has already gone by since last I saw you. Time enough to have gone through this entire 17.6-ounce bag (the largest portion they’ll sell). And I wasn’t even savoring it either, trying to “make it last.” Even so, a full month has passed since you gave me the hot chocolate as an unexpected (and much appreciated gift). I had only casually mentioned that I liked it as we passed by the store in the Ferry Building. And unlike many broke asses who express their desires aloud with the blatant hope and desperation that someone will fulfill (a.k.a. buy) that desire, I was really only saying it to say it. I think some part of me was trying to avoid the silence that was forming between us. The silence that I interpreted to mean that you didn’t know how to tell me that it was probably going to be over once I left. That this visit of mine was my swan song—our swan song.

You made that fairly clear the moment I touched down in San Francisco. Because where once you would have come along with your driver to pick me up, Jasper was sent on his own to come and collect me. When I asked where you were, all Jasper would keep repeating, like a parrot or a broken record, was, “Business meeting.” I knew that was a lie. That you had sidestepped thousands of business meetings before, in your role as the “big boss” (your puerile words, not mine). What would have made this one any different? It was obvious that something had shifted, that, for whatever reason, your feelings for me had turned cold. Which was why there was an added bittersweetness to you buying me some expensive hot chocolate as a parting gift. Not, as you might have in the past, some Agent Provocateur lingerie (in fairness to you though, the Geary Street location closed, along with so many other stores in Union Square). Lingerie as a gift, after all, infers that you want to see the recipient in (and out) of it. I knew that you no longer did. The second you didn’t come to the airport. Granted, I knew that we would still have our “romps” while I was in town the next few days, but that they would be tame—chaste—compared to how they were during our beginning.

When it started, I wasn’t attached. In fact, I would argue that you were and I wasn’t. Isn’t that always how the story goes? After about six months, you had worn down my usually impenetrable walls (and by that, I don’t mean the vaginal ones). The built-in defense mechanism I had that prevented me from ever getting too close with anyone. Least of all to a man as notorious as you when it came to “philandering tendencies.” But you were charming. That was the rumor about you, and, as with most rumors, it proved to be true. I should have somehow shored up my defenses better. Done something to ensure that I wouldn’t actually fall in love with you, but merely fall on top of your dick a few times here and there. The detached girl who flew in from the cold (i.e., London)—or rather, who was “flewed out” away from the cold by her much wealthier paramour. But I underestimated you, and overestimated myself.

By the time I arrived at that realization, however, it was too late. And now, here I was, being ferried by Jasper to one of your apartments. This time, the Nob Hill one. I found it to be less romantic than the one near Golden Gate Park, and took it, again, as a bad sign. A sign that this was going to be my last visit. And, as such, you weren’t going to pull out all the stops. Though, by some people’s logic, it would make more sense to do just that if you knew this was going to be the last time you would be seeing/fucking someone. But that wasn’t your style. Your style, instead, was to go lukewarm…then cold. It probably made you think you were some kind of “humanitarian.” Like, if you provided the person you were rebuffing with the warning signs, then it was their fault alone if they couldn’t see them and, therefore, accept them. That was what you were telling me with the one-two punch of sending Jasper alone and having him shepherd me to the Nob Hill apartment instead of the Golden Gate Park one. You knew how much I loved the GGP residence. To the point where it had become a running joke between us that my master plan was to get you to marry me so that I could kill you and subsequently gain sole ownership of the property. But the bigger joke, of course, was the idea that you would ever concede to marriage.

We both knew going in what this was supposed to be. I was meant to be your toy. You were just a busy, successful person who wanted to have a good time without having to worry about 1) high expectations or 2) that you were being used. But no matter who you are or what you have, you’re always being used. To have a relationship of any kind is to be used. You would probably say that you were the one who was the most used during our little…whatever you want to call it. You would tell me that I came into some nice things, had some memorable experiences and that, in the end, I could simply walk away as a “worldlier” woman. Of course that’s how you would see it. That’s how people who don’t get attached would see it. How I wished that I could see it. And yet, like all the girls who had come before me, I despised you when I understood that you were showing me that our time—my time—was up. Somehow, I thought I would be different, an exception to the rule (as I’m sure the girls who had come before me did as well—what fools, utter nitwits we all were). But you made me see just how unspecial I truly was over the next couple of days. A weekend designed to bid me tacit adieu. To metaphorically cover my mouth as you drowned me in the San Francisco Bay and shoved me off in a floating direction toward Alcatraz. Exile. That was what was happening.

I hated you not just because I loved you, but because, now, San Francisco was probably going to be ruined forever for me. I would always associate it with you. It’s like Billie Eilish said, “I don’t relate to you, no/‘Cause I’d never treat me this shitty/You made me hate this city.” She might have been talking about L.A., but the sentiment is universal. And since I had no intention of returning anytime soon, it also meant that my access to Dandelion hot chocolate would be nonexistent. This is what I thought when I passed the shop in the Ferry Building that day and mentioned that I liked it. That was an understatement. I didn’t like Dandelion hot chocolate, I had an obsession with it. Especially by the fact that it was so exclusive that it was only sold in San Francisco (I don’t count the fact that they have an outpost inside of The Venetian). They said it was because a city like that was always prone to having “hot chocolate weather.” And even if the temperature itself didn’t make it feel that way, there was always the fog to lend a sheen of “hot chocolate ambience.” Maybe, somehow, you could intuit that I more than just “liked” Dandelion’s product, in the same way you knew that I more than “liked” you. I’m sure you were accustomed to women falling in love with you and not reciprocating the feeling. Hell, it was probably like some kind of fucked-up sport to you. I never thought that my pain might actually be affecting you in some way. You seemed so immune, so impervious.

I didn’t realize the extent of how much you cared—or at least cared about my suffering—until, just one week after my hot chocolate supply ran out, I received two new batches of it delivered to my door in Croydon by DHL (I would later find out the cost of shipping alone was fifty dollars, making the grand total to send me two packets of “the stuff” about a hundred and fifteen dollars…an amount I would never dream of spending on much of anything, let alone hot chocolate). I didn’t know if the gesture was so significant that it warranted me swallowing my pride and calling you, or if a text alone would already be bold (and pitiful) enough. I decided to take the more humiliating route and call you.

You managed to surprise me twice in one day from afar by actually answering. “Christine? How are you?”

“Hey. I’m good. Fine, I suppose.”

“Oh wow. That bad, huh?”

You always knew how to make me smile. “Oh sod off. I just wanted to say thank you for the hot chocolate. I had just finished my supply last week, so it was quite convenient timing.”

“Yes, well, don’t ever say I never gave you anything.”

I couldn’t help but bristle at this, saying nothing in response.

“In fact, I’m going to keep you fully stocked on it every time you run out. You can expect a shipment every two months.”

“My. What did I do to deserve such generosity?”

There was silence for a moment before you replied, “Put up with me.”

“Ah. You weren’t so bad. Compared to—”

“Elvis?”

“Sure. Something like that.” Not knowing what to say, how I could thank you any further without sounding condescending or, worse still, obsequious, I did the unthinkable. I told you: “I love you anyway though.”

That was enough to discombobulate you. And rather than scaring you into silence, it seemed to scare you into outright malfunctioning.

“I, er, ehm. Well…anyway, Chris. It was good to hear your voice. Glad you got ‘the goods,’ eh? Plenty more where that came from.”

“Yeah, sure,” I replied with an aura of calm. “Talk soon.”

“Yeah,” you said, your voice breaking off slightly. “Soon.”

I knew that, to you, “soon” meant probably months from now. Years. If that. You had already done me the “service” of even engaging with me, knowing full well that it might lead me to believe we were somehow back “on.” But the truth was, you had changed me. And I knew how to read the signs. The “cues.” Better still, to read them and not be shaken or disappointed by them.

That evening, I sipped my gingerbread-flavored hot chocolate—which had this unique, almost spicy sort of kick to it—and I thought fondly of our time together in San Francisco. You didn’t have to love me back (even though, not to sound narcissistic or delusional, I felt like you did). Because I could still love you, and think of you with no ill will. I couldn’t even if I tried. It was impossible to hate a man who sent me this caliber of hot chocolate.