My Life in Ruins

When I think about Kit’s betrayal and our break-up, I keep replaying the 24 hours leading up to it in my mind. I rack my brain looking for clues, coming up empty every time. I scour every detail with a fine-toothed comb. There must’ve been something - anything - I was missing. Some flashing neon sign saying “He’s lying to you! Don’t trust him!” But there wasn’t. I was blind sided.

The night before “the discovery” was a night like any other. We’d been cleaning and organizing the apartment. Anyone who’s moved in together knows that post-move combining of stuff always looks worse before it looks better. Our place looked like a preppy meets punk bomb site. My Cinderella paintings mixed with his metal concert posters. My purple butterfly stationary mixed with his neon green running shoes. My herbal teas mixed with his variety of hot sauce. We’d make excellent progress all afternoon in the merging and tidying of our belongings and took the evening off to relax.

For our last meal, we ate turkey burgers with ketchup, yellow tomatoes and provolone, potato chips, and baked beans with brown mustard. We drank homemade sweet iced tea and crunched on horseradish pickles, fresh from the day’s farmer’s market.

We watched My Life In Ruins and he brushed my hair throughout the entire movie. When it ended, we danced around the living room to Greek music, singing and kicking our feet up and saying “Opa!!!” We then flipped on She’s Out of My League and I massaged his feet for two hours.

We brushed our teeth, got into pajamas, refilled our water cups and snuggled into bed. I rubbed his back as he drifted off to sweet dreams. He whispered “I Love You” in his daze and rolled over, tugging the blanket with him. It was like every night for the last five and a half months. Nothing had changed. Nothing was different. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Nothing will ever be the same.

He will never again kiss me before bed. He will never brush my hair. He will never tickle me as I’m wriggling into pj’s. He will never annoy me by walking around the apartment cleaning his teeth. He will never warm my cold feet under the covers. He will never tease me about hogging the blankets. He will never toss and turn and toss and turn before settling into snuggle position. He will never make spoons with me again. He will never wake me from a nightmare, soothe my fears away, and hold me until I fall back to peaceful sleep. Now the only nightmares I have are about him being gone. And there’s no one to wake me from them.

I didn’t know it was our last meal. I didn’t know it was our last night together. I didn’t know it was our last kiss. Would I have done anything differently? Probably not. I loved him the same way I did every night. I would still love him the same way today and tomorrow and all the days to come. I didn’t know it was the end. I thought it was only the beginning.

Every person I’ve told about our break-up has the same shocked look of horror on their face and in their voice. It is impossible to believe. He was the epitome of kindness. The sort of man you’d look at and think “Aw, he’s a really great guy. What a sweetheart.” The one thing I heard more than anything else was “He’s a keeper!” and I truly thought he was. Those that knew us together are completely surprised because we were so happy, so in love, so smiley all the time.

What’s that saying? Oh yeah... Ignorance is bliss.