An interesting thing happened to me. My phone rang, and I made the mistake of answering it despite not recognizing the phone number that was calling.

I couldn’t help myself; I thought the call might be from someone important. It wasn’t.

I was expecting several phone calls, primarily from doctors' offices. Since I didn’t have their phone numbers committed to memory, I thought it was best to answer any call that came through, familiar or otherwise. I didn’t want to miss a doctor’s phone call and end up playing phone tag. That never goes well.

When the phone rang and I glanced at the caller ID and saw that the caller was local based on the area code, that was good enough for me. Assuming it was one of the phone calls I’d been waiting for, I answered.

What followed was 82 minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.

As soon as I answered the phone, I knew I had made a grave error.

"Tracey?" the voice on the other end of the line said. "Please don’t hang up on me."

It was my ex-boyfriend, the one I’d dumped eight years earlier for disrespecting my mother. That’s my one absolute dealbreaker. You might be able to get away with disrespecting me, but my mother? Never.

I decided not to hang up on him. 

Why not? Well, I’ve had a handful of phone conversations with him over the last eight years, and they’ve been incredibly cathartic.

I usually just say all the things I should have said while we were together but didn’t. They aren’t very nice things, but I’m happy I can finally say them to him without fear of repercussions.

In other words, I really let him have it.

Over the course of an 82-minute phone call, my ex-boyfriend asked me to take him back over a dozen times. Every time he asked, I gave him the same response. "I don’t want you back; I don’t even like you as a person."

It was the truth.

He asked me to leave my current boyfriend, a man I love, for him, a man I hated for the entirety of the last two years we were together.

I said no every time. I don’t want him back; I can’t even believe I ever dated him at all. That’s one mistake I’m not willing to make again. My ex is a stranger now; his voice is barely familiar. The only thing I remember about our relationship is how little I enjoyed it, especially toward the end.

Eight years. That’s how long it’s been since the day we broke up.

I suppose I should be flattered that he still wants me back after nearly a decade, but truth be told, I feel nothing at all.