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i don't think i could have anticipated the amount of fucked-up-ness my life has bestowed upon me in the past 5 months.

i've never been in shock. maybe i have. but not like last night.

i have felt the way i felt last night, though - someone who was supposed to love me, know me at least a fucking little, and protect my heart because they knew how soft, vulnerable, and open it is, didn't.

they didn't do this. and i question myself at every turn as to what i could have done to prevent this? what i did to encourage this? to make it seem like it would be ok - IN SOME SMALL WAY - if it happened?

i'm in an open relationship and my girlfriend cheated on me.

i'd like to say that i've never been cheated on, but i don't think that's true. i was the other woman with s., in MY mind at least, and felt that she was emotionally cheating on her girlfriend with me. i couldn't do it anymore, even if their relationship was a shit-show, and even if i didn't give a shit about her gf because i thought she didn't treat s. right.

so, s. cheated on me years later. she was cowardly and proposed opening our relationship, but she did it in such a sneaky fucked up manipulative way, and i didn't give "consent." and i know her head and heart went places that i didn't know about.

i cheated in my heart on her, perhaps in return, but because i was enamoured with my professor. a safe, unattainable, unrealistic option. but my thoughts and feelings were diverted from my relationship to him.

and what happened last night? last night i was told many many things after the fact. after things happened, things that were not supposed to happen the way that they did, things i was TOLD were not happening...especially not the way they did.

i had a drink with her.
we talked about you.
there are feelings.
she respects our relationship.
she likes you and doesn't want to fuck that up.
i should have told you.

i feel safe enough to ask the tough questions. i can only ask them when i feel safe.

how much physical contact have you had?

i expect the hard answer.
we kissed.

that's not the answer though.

we made out topless...

i can say nothing but OH! OH! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! i have to go now! NO! i can't....i need a minute, ok? i have to go! and i hang up and throw my phone across my room. partially in anger, partially in fear.

did you hang up so abruptly because it was 6 and you had to go, or because of what i told you?

WHAT YOU TOLD ME

how could she not understand?

i leave, on the way to meet my friend. i'm late now. i'm numb now. i'm dizzy.

she calls and i answer. she asks me not to hang up on her. i stomp up to wellesley station completely ignoring the people around me as i burst inside. the whole time i know it's not over for me. that i want to be with her. that i want her to be with me. and she fucked up.

she said it wasn't fair, that i didn't let her finish...

she said she got caught up.
she was impulsive and thought it would be ok. thought that it was headed there anyway. and that i have a girlfriend.

NO. not that card. that does not EXCUSE her behaviour with someone else. someone she knew i was sensitive about because i'd have to see her all the time. SHE KNEW EVERYTHING because i know that i have to be honest. for myself. for her. for everyone. that is the WAY IT IS and it's fucking hard and it's fucking NECESSARY.

i calm and have to go. inside the station. there are so many details that i'm omitting because i'll hurt more and more if i bring them up. the irony of everything is killing me already at this point.

and then.

she needs to tell me something else.

they had sex.

i have no words left. i moan like a hurt animal. that's all i am. my heart is breaking. it's not breaking. it's suffocating under the weight of this.

i go watch a middle school production of "aladdin" sitting next to my other girlfriend's fiancee and clutch at my arm.

when i think about the situation i dig my nails in. i leave red lines all over, and when i think about it i feel it lower than my stomach. that twitchy excitement one feels with a new lover, replaced by what feels like hemorrhaging.

i am numb. i find something in my bag and stand in an elementary school bathroom and cut at my arms and scratch my stomach.

last week i felt like i was too old at 30 to do that sort of thing. i was happy that i didn't.