An Accidental Love Story: Part 5

Gatsby & the Green Light

I’ve been trying to keep these short but I’m realizing I could make this a million parts so I’ll try to wrap up for all five (5) of my loyal readers

We’ve admitted feelings for each other that I suspect had been there for a while. And with the holidays we’d barely seen each other in the last six weeks. Add to that the entire days we’d go without talking because of “family time” and there was definitely some tension building.

So for one glorious week everything was perfect. And by the end of that week we were both aware that this experiment was coming to an end. Sara just could not shut the fuck up and let him be happy. I felt bad that she was constantly picking fights with him over me. I had extended multiple olive branches over the last month or so and she just did not accept them. I made him promise if we were going to break up he would come say goodbye in person.

So the night before Dakota & I were leaving for Italy he was supposed to come over and we were going to be all happy and sad and grossly lovey and whatever other things we needed to be before we amicably parted ways. Except he doesn’t come.

Apparently she’d been an asshole all day, bitching and moaning about him coming over after work. She tells him to not even bother coming home if he came to see me. I can’t even begin to comprehend what the problem is because he was literally allowed to see me a few days prior but now he’s not even allowed to say goodbye? This is where all the excuses for her fell away. I’d said she’s just stupid, or just immature, or “just” a lot of other not so nice words. But I was finally done trying to see the best in her. The truth is she is a fundamentally evil person. The most evil person I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.

She did not see me as a person. She did not care about hurting me at all. This was malicious. And despite me arguing with him, Ryan chose his wife. Which I understood. But like, couldn’t he choose me this one time? I’d been so accommodating to her ever changing rules and tried my best to keep the peace, I didn’t even deserve a little closure?

I guess the “compromise” she made was that he could call me when he got home… Yay. So he gets home and she’s pissed and ignoring him, even though he did what she wanted, so once again I don’t know what was going on in her psychotic head. I’m annoyed because if they were going to be arguing anyway he could’ve just come over. But whatever.

We FaceTime each other. Honestly, I don’t know why I even called him. I don’t know why I accepted so little. But I did.

Up until this point he has never spoken badly of her. But tonight we get into the venting. And he suddenly remembers something: when he caught her having an affair, she still went to go say goodbye to the guy. AN AFFAIR. SHE CHEATED. But he couldn’t be afforded the same luxury with a consensual relationship? So this is when I find out she has a history of cheating and it’s the only reason they’re in an open relationship. At least this way he can keep an eye on her. Jesus Christ, had we known that we never would’ve looked in their direction. That is a red flag as big as Australia.

At this point I have to ask him why he's even with her. She's mean to him, she cheats on him, she doesn't pull her weight with the household chores... What exactly is she bringing to the table? Not her looks. I have to assume when they got together she was in much better shape and I know that Ryan was in worse shape. Perhaps she was the hot one when they were 18 and he was just grateful to be there. But at this point he was too smart, too hot, too nice, too funny, too accommodating, too loyal, too everything to be with her. I say this not from a place of hatred (although I do hate her) but from a place of true sincerity... I cannot think of a single good quality she has.

Anyway, this conversation blurs together with the exact same conversation we end up having 18 fucking times in the future so I'll skip ahead a bit.

Dakota and I are in Italy. Ryan let's me know Sara is making him unadd me on Snapchat. Cool. Whatever. I'm trying my best to not let these assholes ruin my vacation. We still follow each other on Instagram which I'm fairly certain he basically never used before this, but all of a sudden guess who's watching all my stories. I share a text post that says, "Don't let your spouse keep you from your soulmate." The serendipity of me coming across it at this very moment is just too funny for me to not share. A little bit later I see a green ring around his profile pic.

For those of you unaware, Instagram has a feature to share a story with only a select group of people called "Close Friends" rather than all of your followers. Instead of a pink ring like normal stories, Close Friends is a green ring.

I click it and it's a photo of nothing with the only text being ":/"

I had to laugh a bit. I unselect everyone in my Close Friends except Ryan and share a picture of the streets of Rome. "Good Morning :)" I say, knowing he'll be waking up soon. For a couple days we do this, since it's not breaking any rules. We're not texting. We just happen to be watching each other's stories.

I would refresh Instagram waiting to see the green light like I was Jay Gatsby. So fucking stupid. We were so stupid and gross. Romance is nauseating.

After a couple days I just DMed him because this was a dumb game and I was over it. We basically resumed exactly where we left off, which was extremely unhelpful. Nothing was solved. I told him if he wanted to see me when I got back to the US he needed to stop sleeping with her. In both senses of the word.

And surprisingly, he did. He slept in their guest bedroom. For a couple weeks we had a great time. He would actually text me at night because he wasn't in bed with her. I was seeing him more frequently than ever before and he didn't cancel plans like he had to do all the time when she knew about it. But as much as I enjoyed this I couldn't get past the guilt. I could try to paint it as a moral gray area since they were sort of separated but at the end of the day this was just a fight with his wife, he wasn't leaving her, so it was cheating. I told him he needed to choose. Leave her for real or stop seeing me. He said that despite not trusting she wouldn't cheat again, he had to give it a shot. He had to try to make it work for his child.

I told him he was stupid and she was just going to do it again like always, but eventually I had to stop trying to convince him. It reached a point where hoping some poor kid's parents got divorced made me feel like a bad person. So, despite it breaking my heart, I decided to truly hope and wish everything turned out well for them. It was fun while it lasted, and I didn't regret loving him. We went no contact.