When They  Move On Before You Do

There is always a little time after abreakup where you allow yourself to imagine that it isn’t real. Sure, you had abig fight. Yes, you needed some space apart from one another. And you werewilling to endure a few difficult weeks where you stayed in your respectivecorners and reflected on all the mistakes you made. All of this, you knew howto wrap your mind around. You could live it because there was a voice in theback of your head — one you intentionally fostered — which said that this wasall some grave mistake. At some point in the near future, you thought, the twoof you were going to come running back into one another’s arms, admitting howwrong you were to ever go, and explaining how you perfectly mirror the other’sfeelings. Everything was supposed to work out.

And as long as that is a possibility, aslong as you are able to tell yourself, “This is going to work out at somepoint, ” it’s okay. At least until you’re proven wrong, the breakup isn’t quitereal. Sure, it’s not like it was before, but it’s as if you’re standing outsidea home for which you still have the key. You’re cold now, but you’ll go backinside. And even without a vague sign of reciprocation for your lingeringfeelings, you’ll stay in the limbo for as long as they’ll let you. It’s better,of course, than finding out that they’re over it. Anything is preferable tothat.

One day, though, it’s going to happen.You’re going to hear through mutual friends that they’re seeing someone else.You’re going to hear rumors which become too detailed, too realistic, to ignoreany longer. You’re going to simultaneously want to see proof so badly thatyou’ll go out of your way to run into the couple, and want to pretend as thoughthey do not and have never existed. Their presence in your life puts and end toboth your former relationship, and the increasingly tenuous hope that you wouldbe able to pick up where you left off. Suddenly, there is no gray space toinhabit where things would likely one day work themselves out. There is afeeling of your ex somehow crossing an invisible line. Before, everything wasforgivable. Before, the breakup was simply a mutual mistake. Now, they haveslept with someone else. They have held hands with someone else. They may haveeven told someone else they loved them. What were once easy steps to retraceare now intensely complicated, peppered with hurt feelings and your recurringthoughts of what they must look like in bed together.

You wish you could ignore it, but it’s allyou can think of. As your mutual friends all turn their eyes to you — waitingfor you to lose it, waiting for you to go into “crazy ex” mode and startimplicating them in your messiness — you can’t help but turn your eyes to thenew couple. You have never felt a stronger desire to know every detail and yetbe so wounded by every thought. You want to know, but you don’t. You hate them,but you love them. And all the while, the pressure to remain mature, to remainthe person who accepts a love lost with a stoic generosity, becomes more than youcan bear. It feels as though everyone gets to continue living their life andenjoying themselves except you. You are the one who has to be humiliated, whohas to learn from everyone else’s mistakes.

There are moments where you considercalling. You get drunk enough to dial a number that you might hang up on, ordrive past their house ten times without ever parking the car. You tortureyourself with the prospect of standing up for yourself, of making your presenceknown, even if it inconveniences everyone. And then you realize it — what maybe the most damaging of all your unfortunate epiphanies. The truth is, theydon’t owe you anything. You are no longer together, and they no longer wantyou. As much as you want to paint this new couple as a personal slight againsteverything you had together, the “you” as you understood it no longer exists.And every overture you make to get them to apologize for a wrong they didn’tactually commit only proves that you are the one who has lost. And so you stareat their name in your contacts, you realize that you aren’t going to call them— that you couldn’t even if you really had the courage to — and you wonder howyou start to forget a number you’ve known by heart for so long.