It was over a year ago.
She isn't worth the pain.
I got out of my car and walked across the parking lot. I climbed the steel and concrete stairs to her apartment, three flights up. Slightly winded from the climb, I walked down the hallway toward her door, watching the moths buzz silently around the lights.
It was over a year ago.
She isn't worth the pain.
When I knocked on the door and she didn't answer, I knew something was wrong. Fifteen minutes ago, on the phone, she had told me "if I don't answer, I'm probably asleep. Come on in." So I did.
I walked into the dark living room, crossed the familiar steps to her room and opened the door. I turned on the lights and stepped back: he was there with her. They lay naked, asleep on top the covers, and woke up only to my shocked scream.
I ran, fighting the bile rising in my stomach. I felt my hand punch through the light-switch cover in my frantic dash for the door. I charged blindly down the stairs toward my car, tears streaming from my eyes. In what seemed like an instant, I was collapsed, face down, on the trunk of my car, paralyzed, unable to cry.
By the time she came out, I was done crying. I had finished crying for her. I don't remember what she said. I know I decided I would never cry for her again. I saw him walk tentatively down the stairs, and I knew then that I could never call him a friend, ever again.
She took him home, and we talked. We talked, and I drank. I drank myself into oblivion. I drank because I couldn't see the future - any future. I drank because I wanted to kill the pain. It refused to die. I left.
More than a year later now, I can't get the image out of my head. I keep picturing them lying there together, blissfully asleep. I hate myself for making sacrifices, for forgiving her again and again, for loving her. I hate myself for not seeing before how worthless she really was. I hate myself because even after that night, I kept struggling to find something in her worth loving her for. There was nothing. More than anything else, I hate myself for how I reacted. I wish I had been able to walk into that room, grab him by his hair, and beat him within an inch of his life. I hate myself for wishing I had done the wrong thing.
It's more than a year later.