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Saturday, December 4, 2010

Coffee with The Other Woman: 3

I smiled and squeezed her hand.

I understand. I remember The Moment.

The moment I knew he had given a part of his heart to another woman, when he came home to me a shell of the man who left my bed in the morning. He was distracted at dinner, his head in the clouds.

And I was too afraid to confront him because I was afraid to lose him.

As the walls of my favorite café began to close in on me, I made a mental note never to bring an old flame's old flame here again.

Like there would be a next time.

"Look at us. We are so pathetic. I don't know about you but I had so many things to say to you until you walked through that door. So many questions. Only now, I don't think you are the one with the answers I need."

She smiles back. Almost genuinely this time. "It was a shock running into you as well, considering the number of times I wished you dead. Now that I know he's not with you, I have a need to ask the questions, not knowing is driving my insane."

I realize I am still holding her hand and I let her go. "What questions?"

"Why did he leave us? You and I, we loved him, adored him. We would have done anything in the world for him. And what did You do better than me? He always came back to you, even when things were great with us. I never understood it."

I completely understand her. Many nights I cried myself to sleep and wondered how she was better than me. I tormented myself with thoughts of her, obsessing about every little detail I could find. But here she was, telling me that I had won, that he never stopped loving me even after I had pushed him away. Any woman would be happy to hear those words. To know that she had a hold on the only man she's ever loved. But I just felt inadequate, incomplete. He could not do without me, but he was never mine. Not completely. The realization pierced my heart.

But today, at least one person in the world understands my pain and confusion. And today, it is enough.
(The End)

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Coffee with The Other Woman: 2

The other woman.
Damn.
I did not plan to show her any emotions.
Things never go the way I plan them.
When things get really good,
It's a sign that they will get really bad.

He was my light. My man. OUR man. From the beginning I knew that he would never be all mine. He came to me broken, a shell of a man, a man hurt by the only woman he had ever truly loved. Like a fallen angel he drew me in. Even though he told me how cruel he had been before she hurt him and how much he loved her, I did not listen. I accepted him. I was in love with him. I was determined to keep him. We were so happy. Until he could not live without her anymore, and he slipped out of my life as quietly as he came in.

"I am sorry." She sounds so sincere, I hate her even more.

No she is not sorry. She shouldn't be. Without doing anything she stole him from me, she hurt me just as much as I hurt her. She won. She should be elated. I remember the day he got the ring. We were like teenagers, giggling and holding hands. I saw love in his eyes, felt it in every stolen kiss. Every woman in the store was jealous of me. Why was it so easy for him to lie to me?

"I don't think he ever stopped loving you. He thought he hid it well but I knew, and after a while I tried to stop caring. I knew he loved me too. And it had to be enough. Until it just wasn't enough, you know?"

She smiled. A smile filled with so much pain I thought she would shatter into a thousand pieces...

(to be continued)