Looking the Other Way (Halloween 2015)
I couldn’t have found a more suitable photo for what I’m about to write. Another Halloween, and another eventful evening. Despite this being my proudest costume idea ever, it was not my favorite Halloween.
By now, we’d been together a year and 10 months. Almost two years. In that time, we’d been fighting and forgiving over things big and small, but couldn’t help but stay together and work through our problems together. We both had our own problems on our own though, and some of those needed to be fixed as individuals without the aid of a partner.
I remember this Halloween, nobody recognized me without RN by my side, and nobody could tell what RN was without me by his side. We were a package deal. People didn’t recognize me because I was so well-masked as Mr. Miyagi and they’d start laughing when they heard me talk and realized I was a woman. When they saw RN, they thought he had a lazy costume until we were paired together and they’d realize he was Daniel. We seemed to be nothing without each other, and that’s still how I felt.
I felt like without RN, all the fun times would end. I thought I would be losing more than just him, but I’d be losing his wonderful family, I’d lose his companionship, I’d lose all of his friends, and I’d lose any future I had ever becoming a wife or a mother because I thought after him, there’d be nobody else.
That night, he spent the night at my parents’ house with me because I was worried about him driving home drunk. I let him sleep over, and then he had to be gone the next morning when I went to work. I worked at Toast now, and not long after I arrived at work, RN came in for breakfast and to tell me that he had forgotten his phone on my dresser and needed me to bring it back to his house whenever I had a chance.
When I went home later that afternoon, I picked up his phone from the top of my dresser, looked at it, and temptation got the best of me. I was the cat, and curiosity killed me. When would I ever have another chance to check RN’s phone without him knowing? Besides, there was probably nothing for him to hide. We were honest with each other. I thought.
Wrong.
So. Wrong.
What was I thinking?
How could this be real?
Did I deserve this?
How long have I been lied to about this?
I drove to RN’s house to drop off his phone. That’s what I did. I dropped his phone on the front porch, rang the doorbell, and got back into my car to drive away. I was never so hurt in my entire life, even when I thought I had been before.
I saw him running outside, and I would have killed him if I kept driving, so I stopped.
“Kiana! Where are you going? Why aren’t you TALKING to me?” He screamed.
“Because. I saw your phone. I checked it. I can’t believe it” I stuttered.
He asked me to park the car and come inside to talk about what I had seen so he could explain himself. I allowed it. I wanted to know if there was any reasonable explanation. It was only fair that I’d give him a chance since I had confessed to having lingering feelings for someone else, but the thing is, I confessed. Up front. Told the truth despite it being difficult. I didn’t hide. Because I wanted to fix things.
He didn’t.
But do I blame him? He claimed that he didn’t love this other person, and that he just wanted the attention. I said love. As in I might want to be with this other person instead if I had the chance. Doesn’t that pierce your heart a little more? Doesn’t it sting to know that you might not be someone’s first choice or their only option and that they might leave you any day now?
He apologized profusely for his actions, so I forgave him. What didn’t sit well with me though, was that he was surprised. I just wanted to stay with him because I feared being alone so much. I wanted to make things work so badly. I wanted to at least make it another year together, so we pushed through even longer.
But why?