The Twelfth Post

I can’t help but notice that the number two seems to recur a lot in my life. It’s not something I’m superstitious about by any means, but my life keeps recurring in twos. Or at least the life I led with her did. Two months between meeting and moving in together. Two months between moving in and the email. And she was gone for two days. Weird. I won’t dwell on it.

It’s still Christmas day, so there’s no where for me to go, so I am staying in my room using the hotel’s wi-fi network. It’s been rather quiet over here, and I tried watching TV for awhile to clear my head. It’s not doing any good.

I didn’t know what happened to her when she left. I didn’t know who she spoke with. I didn’t know what kind of conversation she had. I didn’t know anything when she returned, and she wasn’t volunteering anything. I don’t know about you, but when someone clearly needs to talk, and they refuse, it drives me up the wall. Whatever was affecting her, she needed to tell me much like I need to tell everything to you, but much in the same way, it was information too difficult to just come out and say.

She never left the apartment after that. I went to work, but she stayed home. We never slept together again. When I tried to get close to her, she pulled away. When I tried to just be in the same bed with her, she left the room and slept on the couch. I wasn’t happy with what was going on, but I cared too much about her to just leave. I had to find out what was so distressing about my talking to an ex that she would respond like this.

After three (not two, this time) weeks of this, I finally cornered her and asked why Chanda’s email bothered her so much that she would ruin our relationship over it. She looked at me a long moment, confusion etching her face. She said, “Chanda? Email?” Then it dawned on her what I was talking about (which clearly indicated something else was plaguing her, and I clearly misjudged it). She just laughed for a moment, but not an amused laugh or a happy laugh. No, she gave me a pained laugh that said to me, “You’re a total idiot.”

She said if that were all there was to this, then she would not have any problems in the world. She said she is not so petty that she would get so wrapped up in something so infantile as a lover’s quarrel over some old girlfriend. She said she thought I knew her better, and to be honest, I did. I told her I was surprised and didn’t know why she was so upset, so I guessed.

She shook her head. She asked if I thought it was weird how well we got along. Or how well we seemed to relate to each other. I honestly didn’t, and I said as much. She laughed again, fighting back more tears. She called me stupid under her breath, and that might have set me off if I didn’t hear her call herself stupid in the same breath. She mumbled that it explained everything. That all of the nonsense they put her through made sense now, and she should have listened.

I asked her for the first time who “they” is. She looked at me. She looked for a very long moment, as if looking right through me. Finally, she walked up to me and asked if I thought I could begin to handle the truth. I have to confess that visions of Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men” rushed through my head at that very moment. God help me for being so into movies. It was all I could do not to bust up laughing.

She saw my struggle. Her eyes narrowed, and I saw the devil behind the woman I loved. She didn’t speak. Not a word. I saw her eyes dilate in anger. Tears were coming out of my eyes. Her face contorted into a visage I hope no one ever sees on anyone ever again. I have never in my life seen rage of that magnitude on anyone. Needless to say, my sudden amusement over something so serious (and believe it was extremely serious), was not taken well.

My mind got so far as to think “Oh, sh-“ before her fist slammed into my face, and I don’t remember anything else that evening.