iCheat

I could sit here and write you an article similar to How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days but I'm not I’m going to tell you about the time I found out my boyfriend had a new girlfriend through Facebook. Meeting him felt like a movie, the slow-motion walk and the firework-like connection. That's the feeling you get when you meet someone who is going to change your life, he was life changing, just maybe not in the way I expected. I don’t think I could ever hate him, I hate that he wasn’t sorry, I hate that I’ll never truly forget him and I hate that I'll never hate him. There are five stages of grief, the first is denial and isolation, the second is anger. The third stage is bargaining, the fourth stage is depression, and the fifth and final stage is acceptance. Personally, I think eating a shitload of chocolate and Chinese food can replace most of those stages.

I went through my phone the other day, there were pictures of us that I couldn’t just get rid of. My heart sank and my stomach flipped, his smile lit up every single photo, I hadn't seen that smile since. On our dates we would spend fifteen minutes trying to decide which movie to see, it took me even longer to pick out what to wear. I’m never sure of anything but I was so fucking sure of him. He easily towered over me, but his height was just a part of what I loved. The sky is blue and so was his eyes, but I’d pick his eyes every time. I have vivid memories of us, staying up until all hours of the morning, his voice was so familiar on the other end of the line. Or the times we drove until we get lost, he would watch me from his seat watching as words slipped from my lips, he was so interested in every word I said and before I could say anything else he cut me off by saying “God I love you.” Those words made my heart skip a beat, and I realised I loved him too. I loved each aspect of him, even the aspects he hated until he loved them again. He was the smell of wet grass, the scent of coffee in the morning, and waking up late on a Sunday morning. This was my denial stage, I denied that our relationship ended and I still was dwelling on what we used to have. He was everything you could have wanted for a first boyfriend, or at least that's what I thought at the time. His smile changed my life but with a single smirk, he destroyed it.

Our relationship was the calm before the storm, I didn’t recognise the stormy conditions because we do things because we want them, not because they are good for us. I didn’t realise it was already pouring before it was too late, people say that the worst storms come quietly and god were they right. He knew which strings to tug at so well in fact that I became a puppet and he was the puppet master. He was able to lie to me without a single flinch, generally, when he lies he has a tell, he runs his tongue along his teeth but nothing. So I never saw it coming, the abrupt ending to something so beautiful. I have to wonder if he pretends that I’m a bad person so he doesn’t feel guilty about what he did to me or perhaps he is a psychopath, I guess I’ll never know. He was so insecure and felt trapped and has no way of getting out, so he gets other caught in his web so he doesn’t have to suffer anymore. I got caught up in the web but so did someone else.

It’s been eight months. Thirty-nine weeks. Two-hundred and twenty-seven days. Six thousand five hundred and seventy-six hours. Three hundred and ninety-four thousand, five hundred and sixty minutes. Even after all this time it still hurts, it used to be the dull constant ache but now it’s only a sharp pain that only lasts momentarily but with every passing day, the sharp pain lessens until hopefully, it will never occur again. That would be a fairytale ending but I don’t think I could forget him, the way his lips felt against mine for the first time or the way my heart shattered when he chose her. How stupid of me to think I was the only flower in your garden. At the time I wish the other flower would be hit by a bus just like Regina George but I wish her all the best and that they fall in love, then after a while, another girl will come into your lives and ruin it like she ruined mine, just so you can understand what you did and how it felt to be me. This was my anger stage, I was definitely channelling my inner Amy Dunne from Gone Girl, the wife that framed her husband for her own death.

You might not understand everything that happens but you understand yourself better and become different to the person you used to be. I don’t remember much about the days that followed, what I did remember is my friends trying to cheer me up. One night after I was no longer bloated from the excessive amount of food I consumed in a short time frame and took me out. I wore what I would normally wear but I felt different, I didn’t feel comfortable in my own skin. I felt people's eyes on me more than usual, could they tell I had just been cheated on or was there a bright neon sign hovering over my head that read “I have just been cheated on.” I’m not sure which one it was, I just hope the neon writing wasn’t in blue. I tugged at my skirt as I sipped on my drinks, but it didn’t take my mind off him, I swear I kept seeing him everywhere and slowly began driving me insane. My friend introduced me to the guy that had my eyes on me supposedly. I talked but I felt guilty even though there was no reason I should, but I did. I was polite and talked back but he was no Noah. By the end of the night, I kissed him and I couldn’t help but notice the difference. Noah’s mouth was slightly bigger than mine and his kiss always seemed to be gentle. But this kiss was different I could taste the lingering taste of alcohol in his mouth with his not so gentle kiss. I pulled away and left that moment. Every thought was still consumed by him, I could hear his voice in the back of my head muttering “What were you doing? Why were you even standing near that guy? Do you not listen to what I say?” I looked at my reflection in the window didn’t recognise myself. I skipped the third stage and went straight to the fourth stage which was depression. I don’t think he understood what he did, he just fulfilled his selfish needs. There are three different types of cheating; online cheating, physical cheating, and emotional cheating, making him a triple threat. I have this necklace which has his name engraved on the back which he gave me for my birthday one year and I haven’t worn it since. I have wanted to send it back to him, but I can't let it go. It stays in the bottom of the jewellery box. Do you know what hurt the most? He never said goodbye or told me he found someone else.

I wrote her a letter, I didn’t know anything except her first name but I still wrote it to her and I advised her of parts of his mind he allowed me into like he loves his cat more than his dog, that his dad’s an ass and you’ll never meet him so don’t push the issue and that to treat him kindly and he will treat you like the world. I re-wrote that letter a thousand times and with each time, there was less smudged ink. It’s hardest to tell the difference if it was me or him that caused this. There are many reasons why people cheat such as negative past experiences, falling out of love or falling in love with someone else and distance. In most cases, infidelity is never discovered but that wasn’t my case. I know I didn’t let him in, but he didn’t have to go and do what he did. There are also many myths about cheating one of them being that infidelity always means the end of relationships, couples can come back. Another myth would be that there are signs of cheating, there aren’t any if there was it would have saved not just me but everyone that’s been cheated on a whole lot of calories and heartbreak. You hear all these stories about cheating but it’s more uncommon than people think men are more likely to cheat than women, statistics show 37% of dating men will cheat compared to 17% of dating women. I think Noah liked me because I was blue and he was yellow and together we made green and he hated the colour green.

Writing about him was my coping method, it kept me sane. I turned him into metaphors and called him everything from a prick to a hurricane. Now that time has passed and I’m recovering I can see my writing has made him seem exotic and special but he wasn’t. He was just a boy, a boy who I thought was way more and that was my biggest mistake. The girl who was infatuated with no longer exists and I thank them for that. It took me a long time to get the fifth stage but I got there and it’s not impossible. He taught me that heartbreak isn’t the end of the world and that it’s easier to come back from heartbreak than it is to work off all that chocolate.