Forget Me Not

It had been a rough 4 months or so. I cried every night, without fail, even when I thought that I wouldn’t, I’d speak about it as an accomplisment, and he would put me down for it. “It’s only one day, you’ve cried every other day, this isn’t a big deal.” I’d cry again. Night after night I don’t know how either of us did it anymore. There was no love anymore, no safe space. I tried and I tried but I got so angry. I got to a point of neglect where I would resort to petty and harsh words just to get him to feel something in the relationship. He would only react to the extremely harsh ones. Then we would argue, yell, cry, and forgive each other endlessly until we fell asleep. We continued as such, and I continued looking up articles on what to do. I had nothing else. No job, schooling, friends that I paid attention to anymore. This began to take up all of my time. I would wake up at 3 in the afternoon and wait until I could talk to him. Suddenly everything was him, and he was everything. Day after day I began to cling more, and he pulled away. I thought each time I would go to visit that I could fix everything, it would all be great again, just like the beginning. I would lose a questionable amount of weight in the week I wouldn’t see him, and plan what I could do to make things easier again when he would come pick me up. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I began drinking pretty frequently. It became a habit to be tipsy/drunk when he pulled up to my house to pick me up. It didn’t matter if it was at 3 PM, 6 PM, 10 PM, then it got worse, and even at 11 I would be drinking. I would buy lingerie with money I didn’t have to spice up the relationship. I was 19.

One afternoon I was at his place, now what I usually do is sit around waiting for him. I would play video games, clean the dishes, or sleep. I decided I was going to clean the apartment so that it was nice and fresh when he came back. I think I had ulterior motives in wanting to find something, because I had this gut feeling for the past couple of months that something was wrong. Good intentions or not, I started. I gathered the scattered change he had lying around his apartment, I grabbed a ziplock bag and when it was filled and the floor was clean I placed it on his bureau in the corner of his room, at the bottom of his closet. I made his bed, which simply consisted of one very thin and used comforter, a sheet, and one of the flattest pillows I’ve ever laid on in my entire life. I might as well have been in prison.

Hours went by as I scrubbed down the kitchen, mopped the floors, rearranged the fridge. I returned to his room. I found an iPad he hadn’t used since we were last in his hometown if Albany and figured I’d charge it so he could use it again when he got back because I also found the charger. Ulterior motives? I continued. I folded all the laundry he had done the day before at the laundromat with me. I placed it neatly in his bureau and found all the pairs of socks and put those in a separate drawer. Everything on the top shelf of his closet had been cleaned out, organized, and placed in a delicate way. I found some scattered receipts and gifts he had gotten from his parents back home.

Stepping back from it all I breathed a sigh of relief. It felt like a cleansing, but something still didn’t feel right. I sat back on his bed when I heard the iPad turn back on, it was had charged enough to reboot. Here’s where the ulterior motives seemed to have set in when I hadn’t found anything else. I went to open it, curious as to what I could find. Locked. What could his password be? Here’s where I’m ashamed because I tried so many things of what the password could be. Then it was like a lightbulb went off in my head, his father. He’s always been so fond of his father, he always talked about how much he loves him. I quickly went to his computer at the other corner of the room beside the window, checking to see if he was home, even though he wouldn’t be for the next 5 hours or so anyways. I opened Facebook and went straight to his father’s page. November 2nd. 1102. It slid open. My curiosity was at its peak. I didn’t know what to start at. My mind was racing, I felt like I had done something horrible but as if I still had something to find. I flipped around, checked through photos, but he didn’t take many on the iPad, mostly just his little brother when it was at home. I couldn’t check Facebook because it wouldn’t let me log in. But he had hidden and deleted everything on there anyways, because I had looked times before. I still felt the gut feeling. Like this giant ball of anxiety in my stomach, like I was full, but I had barely eaten anything the past couple days. Like I had something in my throat, like I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t tell why. I felt like I was going crazy.

I had almost given up when I clicked on the texts, they synched from his phone. He didn’t know, but when he deletes them from his phone, they don’t delete on the iPad. One of the ones at the top was just a number, no name, they all seemed to be somewhat nameless, I guess being on an iPad and not connected with his contacts made sense. I clicked through some of them, his best friend was one, his aunt, father, step mother, little brother on another phone. Then I found one. The pit in my stomach felt more obvious. I saw my name. “What about Lauren? Aren’t you still dating her?” I scrolled to the beginning. Now I won’t go word for word but what I read made me feel the worst I had every felt in my entire life. I’ve had my appendix burst, my cats die, school overhwhelm me to an extreme extent, but this was the worst I had ever felt. I felt my entire heart drop in my body, everything went cold, everything was shaking. Vibrating. My whole body was vibrating as I tried to continue reading. I took screenshots with my shaking hand.

He wrote to her a simple hello, they started out talking, but he seemed flirtatious. He then came onto her a considerable amount. He asked for her SnapChat, insisted she send a photo of her boobs, because she had BASICALLY seen him naked some odd years ago when he got out of the shower at his ex girlfriend's, who was one of her friends. He wrote something to the fact of knowing she always wanted him, and that she was his. She seemed cautious, questioning if he was still dating me. But she was obviously intrigued because she was in love with him.

Now, what I read next was something I’d dreaded that last 4 months. I wanted to be special to him, I didn’t know if he saw a future together anymore, or if he even wanted me to stay with him.

“Yeah. But don’t worry, she’s not a long term thing. She doesn’t matter.” My heart broke again.

“I’ll break up with her before March break so that when I come to visit, we can do stuff.” It had passed March break, had anything happened? I started shaking more. Then came doubt. No. This couldn’t be real. Maybe it’s some sort of sick joke because I look through his things? Maybe it’s someone else. Lauren. Maybe it was a different Lauren? Who had he been speaking to? Was this before me? It couldn’t have been. I read the dates. He was drunk. Maybe he didn’t mean it? He did. Everything was falling apart and I felt angry and sad and I knew he wouldn’t be home for several more hours and I was spiraling in his apartment, a 2-hour car ride away from my home, across the border. I didn’t know what to do. I messaged a plethora of his friends explaining what happened, falling apart, hoping one would come. I texted my mother to pick me up. I messaged him way too many times, from sadness to crying to yelling to acceptance to yelling again. I must have sent him 100 different messages at least exclaimed how betrayed and dead inside I felt. I was so angry. I had nowhere to go. I looked around and I couldn’t take out my anger, I had just spent so long cleaning, I felt so awful destroying what I’d done so I left it spotless. The only thing I could do was punch a hole through the blinds. I still tried to fix them. I fell down and sobbed. I got up, put a beanie on and left the apartment. I didn’t know what I was doing. I couldn’t lock the door, I just left. I started walking, where would I go? His class? I had no idea what I was doing but I was walking and crying trying to cling to the hope that he could explain and it would all go away. It would be okay, he would explain and none of it would hurt anymore. He would explain and none of it would mean anything it would just be something I imagined. He had to explain. I walked faster, I stood still, I walked back. I had no idea where his class was. I had no idea where he was. I got back, I screamed again, I messaged him again. He always shuts his phone off while he’s in class. He’s getting nothing. I broke down. I Facebooked the number to find out who it was, I knew it was her. He had mentioned her a month ago, brought up something he’d never mentioned before and acted like it was nothing. I had her as a friend. I liked her photos. I felt disgusted. I wanted to puke. His friend showed up, another did a while later. They were comforting me as I sat there, sobbing, scrolling through my photos, my notes, deleting everything, every video I had of him, every photo, every note I wrote to him or he wrote to me. I couldn’t see any of it. I needed it gone. His friend tried to calm me down but I was just waiting until he came back. The pit in my stomach only felt larger and larger as I realized what I’d be losing if I lost him. Everything. He was everything and everything was him. I had no job, no school, no friends. I would have nothing. His family, his apartment, his cats back at his hometown. His little brother, his father’s hugs, his step mother’s wine, or delicious buffalo chicken pizza, our football get togethers. Everything flashed and I couldn’t breathe. The sobbing began to feel like knives in my throat, like I wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and stay there forever. I had never known someone could kill you while you remained alive.

He pulled up, I heard the car beep, as usual. He had read my messages, he had just finished a class when he bought himself a sandwich. He threw it away when he saw what I had found out. I wrote what he had bought so that I could make it up to him when I thought we would try to figure it out, it was a tuna sandwich and salt and pepper Miss Vickies, I had this in my notes shortly after. He got straight out of his car and I went outside, his friend asked if he wanted me to go talk to him and I told him I would. I walked right by him and I told him my mother was showing up, I was going home and I packed everything. He was freaking out, he asked if we could talk and I held a straight face while tears rolled down my cheeks, I was emotionless, I couldn’t even look at him. I wanted to smack him. I can’t remember if I did or not. He got me to talk to him in his car. He was pulling his hair and sobbing and telling me he was sorry. I couldn’t believe it, I just kept crying. “I don’t believe you”, I kept repeating. “I don’t believe you anymore.” We were both sobbing and he was losing it. I could tell. But something was wrong, it wasn’t that he was afraid of losing me, he was upset he had gotten caught. He kept trying to explain and kept apologizing but I remember he kept saying how his family loved me and that I was such an amazing person but nothing about how he felt. He knew I was good but I wasn’t good for him. That was the problem. We ended up hugging, he couldn’t breathe, I resorted to helping him, I stopped caring about how I felt and all I could focus on was trying to help him, I felt so bad for him. Why? I got out of the car after I said I couldn’t do it anymore and he was crying. My mother had shown up and asked if that’s how I wanted to leave it. I went back and gave him another chance. We should have just driven away.

My best friend showed up at my house with chocolates and energy drinks. I talked to her for a while but he messaged me. You messaged me. You wanted to talk, you were in bed and no one was talking to you, all your friends hated you so you wanted to call me because you felt alone and I felt bad. I felt bad for YOU. I ended up getting her to leave and we called. I messaged all your friends telling them not to be mad at you, that you weren’t a bad person and I wanted them to move past it. Because I wanted to help you feel better. I didn’t stay on the phone with you that night even though you wanted me to. I thought that was a good start.

A couple days later you resorted to the same thing. Less phone calls, less caring, suddenly everything was back to normal when your friends spoke to you, thanks to me. I was about to eat pasta when you said we should talk. You broke up with me on Skype. I kept telling you not to go, I couldn’t do it, don’t go, don’t go, please, please. Please. Please don’t go. You left. Why was I the one begging you to stay in the end? How did you always manage to twist it like that? Why was I sorry? How did you make me feel like in the end, we broke up because it was my fault? How could you take that from me? How could you take the chance I gave you and throw it in my face? What happened? You left. You told me you’d never leave. That we would always be friends, because we were so similar. I think you were just in love with me because I reminded me of you. When you found out I wasn’t, you left. You couldn’t love someone who wasn’t you.