The moment after

I still remember the moment I found out. I was back on my old campus to do a presentation about my trip to Brazil and I got a message on Facebook while I was trying to sleep at the Odegaard library. The message was from a friend and it said, "I really don't think you should be dating her."

Me and him went back and forth about it for a while and I remember my chest sinking with each message that came in. I lost patience in piecing together the whole story. Part of me wanted to believe that I made a bad translation, maybe I read the whole thing wrong. Messages had a tendency to do that sort of thing. It's one of the few times you wish you were worse at something that you had been wanting to be good at for so long. So I called him, long distance, from the US to Brazil. He explained everything to me, and to my dismay, I understood it perfectly the first time.   

I called another friend right after. I told him I was going to be so pissed later. Really I wanted to say "so heartbroken", but I didn't want to look weak. The one thing he told me that kind of helped was, "Don't let this make you lose faith in God." 

But I'll tell you why I was pissed. I was pissed because I was bamboozled. I was pissed because you were a fraud. And the worst kind of fraud because you think you are not everything that you are. You are not all peace and happiness. You are not always helping the world. You hurt people. That's not to say you're the only one; people hurt other people all the time. I hurt people all the time. But I don't pretend that I don't. There's a part of me that's a fucking piece of shit, but I own it. I show it and see what happens. I don't hide. I am not a liar. You said that you never wanted to hurt me. But you didn't mean that. You don't say something like to someone that unless you mean it.

Then I went to give my presentation. One of the few things I'm proud about in my life is that I managed to knock that presentation out of the park. I spoke like nothing had happened. I carried myself as if my heart wasn't shattered into a million pieces half-an-hour earlier. It was possible to compose yourself in those kind of moments. I just don't enjoy it all that much.

I sat in my car and tried to figure out why. I scanned my memory for signs, maybe something I had overlooked. But nothing came up. Instead I remembered our last conversation. You said to me, "Let's stay together until we're old and ugly!!" You said that on the same day it happened. I have the text message to prove it.

I sat there for 10 minutes in complete silence. I didn't cry, though I had wanted to. I guess the feeling hadn't sunk in. I don't think I felt much during those minutes, or maybe it's just something I don't want to remember. I dunno. It's not a place that I like to revisit very often.