The chill of that night seven years ago still felt like it was in my bones. I had given in, retreating from a fight that wasn’t worth fighting. My ex-husband chose her—the other woman, the home-wrecker who had also abandoned her own marriage. Her husband, I was told, could only surrender and accept the divorce papers from a wife who was blissfully in love with another man. I rebuilt my life, slowly, from the shattered pieces of my self-worth.
Then, Diaz came. A light after such a long darkness. He was patient, slowly teaching me to open up again. It took him almost two years to make me believe that not all men were the same. I started to trust again, to dare to love again. I even began to imagine a future, something I had buried deep within me for so long.
Until one evening, his phone buzzed. He was in the shower. I saw the screen light up with a notification from a woman named Siska. It wasn’t the message that made me curious, but the sheer pile of unread notifications. A terrible预感 (premonition) bit at my instincts.
With trembling fingers, I opened it. And my world collapsed for the second time.
The chat was full of sweet promises, complaints about their respective partners, and plans for secret meetings. The language they used was familiar, intimate, and exactly the same as what I had experienced before. I read their conversations planning a weekend together while Siska’s husband was supposedly on a business trip. I felt nauseous, dizzy, and my whole body went weak.
Diaz came out of the bathroom, smiling. “Hey, what’s up?”
I looked at him, but all I could see was the shadow of my ex-husband and that woman from seven years ago. It felt like being hit by the same storm in the exact same spot. My tears couldn’t even fall, locked in by the sheer cliché of this fate.
“You… and Siska?” My voice trembled, barely a whisper.
His face turned pale. He didn’t deny it. He just stood there in silence, which was the most honest confession he could have ever given.
“My God,” I whispered. Shattered. A thousand times more shattered than the first. Because this time, I had built a fortress so strong, and he had torn it down so easily.
Diaz tried to explain, said it was a mistake, that he was confused. But all his words were drowned out by the roar of grief in my head. The only question that kept slicing through the deepest recesses of my heart: Does it always have to happen like this?
I looked at him, the man I thought would lead me out of the darkness, only to have him throw me back into the same hole. That trust, which I had worked so hard to build, was now completely destroyed. How could I possibly start again from zero? How could I ever trust again, when all I get is the same betrayal?
I walked away from him, leaving the apartment that suddenly felt so suffocating. On the quiet streets, I finally cried. Not for Diaz, not for my ex-husband, but for myself. For a trust that might never be whole again.
Does it always have to happen like this? Maybe not. But for now, all I feel is a pain so deep, and a bitter lesson: sometimes, the “moving on” I had fought so hard for, I have to learn all over again. And this time, it hurts so much more.
Photo by Anna Zakharova on Unsplash
