Chuck Cuevas Stinks

"And now I've got to explain the smell that was in there before I went in there."

-Ellen Degeneres

-

"And he waited until I asked for my stuff back to say something. And he has a supposed girlfriend and I was just happy watching Grey's Anatomy and eating hummus by myself. And I've decided that I'm just going to keep never talking to him again because he annoyed me and he's not even my boyfriend anymore, like what the fuck?"

Shane looked back at me, before uttering what was the most amazing thing that a guy had ever said to me in my entire life. Okay, I exaggerate, but it was still pretty great.

"I saw Chuck today, and he smelled really bad."

"Wait, what?" I looked back at him, expectantly.

"He smelled so terribly, and it caught me completely off guard. Like, it just offended me a little that he smelled so terribly."

I smiled, which was petty of me, I know, I'll own up to that. And then I started laughing. "I'm not even going to pretend like this didn't make my day, because it did. Because every time someone sees Chuck they tell me he smells bad, and it honestly brings me joy."

It did, you'd feel the exact same way if you were in my position. Chuck threw me in a ditch and then walked away, acting like he was hot shit and completely unscathed by our breakup. While I laid in my bed and cried to Sam Smith and Adele. I deserved to enjoy this, I did.

When Chuck and I first broke up, I joked that he would end up a mess, and he told me that he would be happy and fine and great. And for a while, it seemed like the world was magically falling into place for him, as if tossing me in that ditch was the best thing ever.

And I'm not going to pretend like I didn't want his life to be so goddamn dandy, I wanted him to suffer too- and remember, I was thinking this when I was miserable and broken hearted, crying myself to sleep and crying in his EWH sweatshirt. I was so salty, because he was unscathed and my heart was smashed into pieces.

"Yeah he smelled terrible, and he just looked so greasy," Shane said, adding to my petty amusement.

"People have been telling me what whenever I see him, I don't think he smelled that bad when we dated, he just smelled like... Chuck. I liked it."

"What if he smelled terrible the entire time you just never knew it?"

WHAT IF CHUCK WAS STANKY AF THE ENTIRE TIME AND I REALLY JUST DIDNT KNOW IT?

I recalled our second date, when Chuck showed up smelling like B.O. because he ran from the other side of campus to meet me, because he didn't want to be late. He smelled terrible and I still cuddled with him because I had liked him so much.

"Oh my god."

Shane started laughing, uncontrollably.

"He just stank the whole time, and you never knew it."

Holy shit.

And then I thought about it, he definitely stank when we dated, I just never smelled it. But he didn't physically stink (well... At least I don't think he did, he may have), but he stank metaphorically, he just had this glaring problem with him that I ignored because I was in love with (or at least I thought I was). And the glaring problem? He obviously never gave a fuck about me. I'm sure he cared about me at least a little, but he didn't care about me enough, he didn't love me enough, and it was obvious to everyone else, but I just ignored the signs that he stank. The times he was selfish and didn't think of me, the times that he didn't stand up for me, or try to understand why I was upset. The times he was never on my side, and never on my team, and didn't stand by my side- but on the sides of others. The times he showed up late and cancelled dates, the times he didn't think about what I wanted or what I needed. The times he didn't say what I needed to hear,  the times he wasn't there for me, and the times he didn't listen to me. Quite simply, the times that he stank.

And everyone around me probably could tell, they could probably smell it, and all knew that he stank. But I didn't, because I was so madly in love with him. And it took him, throwing me into that ditch, doing the absolute stinkiest thing he could, to make me finally smell him.