In case you missed Part 1: https://datinginnewyorkblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/a-story-of-betrayal-part-1/
Once I was in the hospital having a miserable time, and he would call me when I could barely speak because I was so weak. He would sing my favorite songs to me. I loved his voice. He had the best voice – I can’t deny that even in my state of hatred. He would tell me stories to make me laugh and then tell me about all the things he had planned for us when I came out of the hospital.
He made the time I spent in the hospital go by faster, me falling asleep with the phone to my ear and a smile on my face. One night I was really uncomfortable and the nurse actually used my phone to call him and asked him to sing to me.
Such moments made me believe that he loved me.
But today …
I will never forgive him.
I will never wish him the best.
In fact I wish him nothing but misery and warts on his dick.
I know this doesn’t make me a sympathetic character. But you should consider me a reliable protagonist because I speak the truth.
I know that all this hate and venom does nothing to him.
He is not even aware.
He thinks he made a mistake – apologized – in a manner that was not fitting of the crime. Actually, the apology was pathetic and insulting.
Now all is good with the world.
But it’s not.
All is probably right with HIS world. But it certainly not right in MY world.
I have never been betrayed in this manner before and so I have no idea how to deal with it.
I have read many many articles and books on the topic of betrayal.
Intellectually I know that letting go is the only way to heal.
I will say again that I have ‘let go’ and I have ‘moved on.’
Clearly not, is what you are thinking as you read this.
I don’t blame you. I would think the exact same thing. But I truly have.
What I haven’t done is succeeded in getting him to vacate my head and my heart. He can pop into my head out of nowhere – how long I let him stay there is up to me.
I could be listening to a certain song – something I had to stop doing for several months, and I think of him. I had to give up entire genres of music because of him.
I could be walking down the street and see someone with his hair or I see the face of the watch that he gave me when I open my jewelry box to pick a pair of earrings to wear.
Last year on my birthday when we had not been together for about 4 months, I spent the day with my friends. I had a nice time with them and was staying over at a girl friend’s place. We were both on the couch, watching TV when my phone lit up and made a sound. It was a text from him, “I hope you had the most glorious day and wish you all the best.” He then called me a name he always did when we were together and I started balling. My friend looked up in shock to see what was up.
I threw the phone at the other end of the couch and couldn’t stop crying.
She got up from her couch and sat next to me, putting her arms around my shoulders.
“Bastard. Motherfucker. Calling me his love.”
She looked at my phone and realized what I was talking about.
“Don’t let him ruin your day. Didn’t we have such a nice day?”
I could barely hear her question.
Yes, we had had a lovely day. She had gone out of her way to make it fun for me. The celebration wasn’t over and tomorrow she had booked us for a day at the spa where we would get massages and mani/pedis.
“Yes, we did and I thank you but he is the lowest, shittiest scum of the earth.”
“We know he is but please don’t cry,” she stood up to go get me water.
I was so angry at myself for even having this reaction. I had been doing so well. I had been on a few dates since the break up. I even had sex a few times and it was good. And now I get a lousy message two minutes before my birthday ends and I lose my mind. What the fuck is that.
My friend handed me the glass of water and I tried to breathe. I glanced at my phone and saw the three dots that you see when someone is writing you a message.
Really? He had more to say to me.
Fuck him, I thought and turned the phone face side down.
“You should really block him.”
“I know and I will.”
I sipped the cold water to get rid of the acrid taste in my mouth and thought about last year at this time when we were sipping way too many beers on the eve of my birthday. I could never keep up with how much he would drink but that day I was happy. I was in a celebratory mood. I was getting text messages from my relatives in India because it was already my birthday there. I would look at my phone, read the messages and smile. He would walk back with another pitcher of beer and I would read him the message.
“That’s sweet,” he said about the message my niece just sent me. He poured the beer into my glass.
“Cheers,’ he gazed into my eyes.
“Cheers,” I smiled back.
“I love you – you know that. You are the most precious thing to me.”
I believed him at that moment. Why else would someone say such things to another unless they meant it.
Naive much? You might say.
But I never told anyone I didn’t love that I loved them.
We finished the last of our beers and he pulled me up from the bench we had been sitting for hours and kissed me like never before.
“Come home but we are not going to have sex tonight.”
“What,” I screamed. I must’ve screamed. What the fuck. It’s my birthday. Why weren’t we going to have sex tonight. What does that even mean. So ridiculous.
“Let’s go,” he said walking me to the exit. His place was right behind the beer garden. As we walked that half a block, sharing a cigarette, I said, “What do you mean we are not going to have sex?”
He took a long drag from the cigarette, “because we are just going to cuddle,” and he burst out laughing.
We stood in the middle of the street and he hugged me tightly, still laughing.
“You are such a bastard. It is your duty to have sex with your girlfriend on her birthday – or any day as a matter of fact.”
“Don’t we have sex all the time?”
“We do and are you complaining?”
“No…but”
“No but nothing, let’s go. I can feel things are astir in your pants already,” I said giggling and running to the entrance of the apartment building.
He opened the front gate and we walked down the few steps to his apartment.
“You only want me for my body, don’t you,” he said as he struggled to pull out the keys from his jeans.
“Yes, of course. I couldn’t possibly want you for your trust fund which you don’t have,” I said pushing into him as he unsuccessfully tried to stick the key into the keyhole.
“So much trouble finding the holes,”
“I’ll show you how good I am at finding holes,” he said as he pushed open the door.
He flicked the light on and there on the kitchen counter was a vase full of deep purple, almost black calla lilies, my favorite flowers.
“Since you hate roses, my sweetest love. Happy Birthday. I wish you the stars and the moon and whatever your beautiful heart desires this year,” he said as he kissed me.
“Awwwww you listen.”
“Of course I listen. You never stop talking. I have to do something.”
“That’s so not fucking true. You talk way more than me.”
“How about … now that you are an old lady, you talk less, listen more and ….”
“Listen mister, I am your elder and you will respect me.”
“Oh yes – I will respect you. Now come with me.”
“Please don’t let that asshole make you not sleep tonight – do you want another scotch?”
I was jolted back from that moment when we were about to make love in his bedroom where the bed was made for once, and I could tell the sheets had been changed in my honor.
“Yes, I will take another scotch and let’s go out to the balcony and have a smoke.”
And so this is how it happens. I will be living my life and something, a smell, a sound or some words will take me back to the moments with him when we were happy. The moments when I believed he loved me, that I was the most precious thing in his life.
It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved before – cliches are just that. Cliches. But they come into being because they are true and have been said enough times to turn them into cliches. I am not at the stage right now where I find one redeeming thing about the relationship I have described.
I know I haven’t told you what happened, what he did. Maybe you kind of already know. I can assure you this. You know some of it but you don’t know it all. You can’t.
But I am not ready to reveal it yet.
Not because it is a great secret. Just because I am not strong enough yet.
Until I date again!
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