Saturday, February 16, 2013

The Truth Will Set You Free


Brad watched my face as he said it.

There was a beat of silence before a look of understanding spread over Mike’s face and he turned to look at me. The hurt from Brad’s words were all over his face. Mike headed out of the bar, I followed him out but not before I shot Brad a look full of hatred.

When I caught up with Mike on the sidewalk, he spun around to look at me.

“Is it true?” He asked.


I didn’t answer. He shoved the bag of food into my arms and hailed a cab.

“Mike, please, let me explain!”

He got into the cab and slammed the door. He refused to look at me before it sped off. I felt completely overcome by my emotions. I thought I was going to throw up. I was pissed at Brad, I was upset with myself, and I was devastated for hurting Mike. I stood on the sidewalk clutching the bag of food to my chest while tears ran down my face. People were staring at me and I felt humiliated.

I ran back to my apartment to grab my wallet and called a cab. I needed to explain to Mike what had happened and make it clear that I was planning on telling him. I knocked on his door for what seemed like 10 minutes.

“Mike, I know you’re home. I saw your lights on from the street. Please let me in.” I shouted at the door.

He opened it and looked extremely angry.

“Can you just go?” He asked.

“Please, let me explain and then I’ll go.” I said quietly.

He took a step back from his door and I hurried inside. He shut it and then turned around and crossed his arms. I sat on his couch but he didn’t make a move to come sit with me so I awkwardly stood back up.

“So? Explain.” He said angrily, “It’s true, right?”

“Yes.” I said. My throat suddenly felt really dry, “But you and I were…we’d had that fight on Christmas and I hadn’t heard from you until that night. I was sure you were going to dump me and I was upset and sad. I was going to tell you about what happened.”

“So…your excuse for sleeping with that guy is that you were sad?” Mike laughed coldly and walked to his kitchen to lean up against the counter and put the kitchen island between us, “Are you serious right now?”

“We weren’t together, Mike.”

“So, you’d be totally okay if I went out and slept with someone else during that week?” He asked.

I didn’t say anything.

“You don’t believe that’s a valid reason, Faith.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No you don’t or you never would have planned to tell me in the first place like you claim. If you really didn't think that we were together then you never would've felt obligated to tell me about it.”

Mike had a point and it forced me to be honest, not just with him but also with myself. I started crying.

“Oh, come on!” Mike yelled. He turned around and leaned his hands on the counter and put his head down so he didn’t have to look at me.

I walked over to him and tried to get him to look at me. He shrugged me off and backed away.

“No, Faith, you don’t get to cry about this! You’re not the one who was hurt here.”

“That isn’t fair, Mike.” I said through tears, “If you’d backed me up in that argument with Maggie, we never would have been on a break. We never would have fought! You didn’t stand up for me so of course it makes sense that I would’ve gone out and found someone who made me feel loved…even if it was just for a few minutes. I di-”

“I cannot believe you are comparing me not standing up for you in an argument to you cheating on me! Especially when it involved my entire family who had only just met you! They are not even remotely the same, Faith. I could maybe understand if I’d cheated on you first but I didn’t! I have been faithful to you because I love you!”

“I made a mistake, Mike, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”

“You don’t get it!” He yelled, “You’re it, Faith. You’re the only one.”

I looked at Mike with confusion.

“You’re the only girl I’ve…I’ve had other girlfriends but you’re the only one I fell in love with. Ever.”

He looked embarrassed.

“I….you never said any-”

“Do you have ANY idea how big of a deal it was for me to tell you that I was in love with you!? This was the longest and best relationship I've ever had," Mike's anger seemed to deflate at that and was replaced with insurmountable sadness, "...how could you do this?”

I stood there with tears streaming down my face; I had no idea what to say. Mike walked back to his door and grabbed the coat hanging on the back of it. He reached into one of the pockets and slammed a small velvet box on the kitchen island in front of me.

I slowly looked up from the box to Mike. He was looking at me with the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. I walked up to him and put my hands on his chest.

“It meant nothing.” I looked into his eyes so he could see how much I meant what I was saying but as I kept talking he just shook his head and moved me away from him. I started talking with more urgency, “I regret all of it. I should’ve told you the day we had coffee but I didn’t want to hurt you, I didn’t want to lose you. I love you Mike, my life is not the same without you in it.”

He backed away from me, still shaking his head, and took some shaky breaths.

“Faith, I need you to leave now, okay?”

“No. No, please, Mike, don’t do this.” I said, I panicked and sat down at his dining table and refused to move, “We can talk about it. We can get counseling. Please.”

I started sobbing and rocking back and forth.

“I’m going to take a few days to think about everything. Please don’t try to contact me.” He said.

“Mike, please don’t leave. Just talk to me. Please.”

He grabbed the ring box, his jacket, and his keys and left me in his apartment sobbing. I waited for hours but he never came back. 

15 comments:

  1. Oh. My. Gosh. This post gave me chills Del.

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  2. I feel bad for Mike. Faith is pathetic.

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  3. Wanna cry...heartbreaking...BUT
    Mike said the fact that she screwed Brad cuz she was sad was no excuse; but he did the same thing with her while dealing with his mother's death. Yes, they were a couple and all, but it wsa still the same thing. Not that I condone what she did with Brad, because I feel like Faith totally used Brad and then ignored him, when obviously she didn't want to be split up with Mike.

    I think Faith is going to have to do some damage control here to make things right, I just don't know what. Maybe he just needs time to work through things. mum

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  4. I would argue that Mike pressured Faith into sex because he didn't want to deal with the reality of his mother's wake, not actually from sadness, though. I don't see them as the same thing. Mike wasn't a perfect boyfriend but he's always respected Faith and genuinely apologizes when he screws up. Faith didn't respect Mike in doing what she did with Brad and then she tried to blame it on Mike instead of owning up to her behavior.

    I also noticed that nowhere in that post does she ever say the words I'm sorry. I don't know if Faith really realizes the weight of what she's done, which I find surprising considering that she WAS in that situation twice with Sean and Kevin and knows how painful it is. Maybe she justified it because they were sort of not together and sort of were?

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    1. That is what pisses me off: she has been on the receiving end of this before. She also cheated on Teddy with Sean and felt terrible about it after.

      She has had so many things happen "to" her for so long. She appears to just drift along. When things happen (good or bad), she doesn't seem to recognize how her action and mindset had a positive or negative role in shaping events. They are just things that happen to her, and then she attempts to deal with them (or not).

      I wonder what is the next big event that has to occur before she chooses to ignore or deal with her problems. I'm not that thrilled to see her "deal" with her problems because she does it incompletely, which lands her in the same pile of shit again.

      She has a choice to make, and I'm disappointed that she hasn't given the way she has hurt many others and not held herself responsible for it. She has hurt herself too, but I don't feel sorry for that because she is the one with the power to change that for herself. And she hasn't (for at least a year now but I think it's longer than that).

      She may change after this, but that knowledge feels hollow at this point.

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    2. Faith will get a pretty bad wake up call soon enough.
      -del

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    3. I hope Mike stays alive. Kinda got spooked that something might have happened to him when reading the last few lines.

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  5. So sorry for them BOTH. Faith seems like she's thisclose to falling apart at the seams; I don't think she'll handle a break-up with Mike well. From Mike's pov, though, (and I'd feel this way if I were him) they weren't actually broken up. Taking a few days or even a couple of weeks away from your significant other after an ugly fight to calm down and think clearly doesn't define a break-up. Plus, Faith trying to compare their fight on Christmas Day when he didn't back her up with her being unfaithful because she was "sad" was serious reaching on her part; the 2 "wrongs" are apples & oranges. No comparison. When Mike was "sad" after his mother died and wanted to have sex with Faith those times to avoid dealing with his loss & pain, he wasn't cheating on her to do it - he wanted sex with HER. It's the cheating that he'll have a big problem getting past. For some (many) people, it only takes once to create major trust issues in a serious relationship. That can really change a person's feelings for the one who cheated. Mike admitted that he'd never felt anyone was THE ONE until Faith; he was going to ask her to marry him. Emotion that strong for someone would make the feeling of betrayal much worse. Faith knows they weren't really broken up when she did that, or else she wouldn't have felt it necessary to tell Mike at all - she wouldn't have felt so guilty and miserable about it from the moment she and Brad finished. *Ouch*: that's gonna leave a mark - for both of them.

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    1. Did she really think they were NOT breaking up when she had sex with Brad? I dont know... she seemed to really think it was over between her and Mike... the next day when she went to meet him, I think she was genuinely surprised. Also, taking a break didnt have the same meaning for each.. for Faith it was a are we going to break up, but for Mike (now that we know the depth of his feelings for Faith) it was never a lets break up, but how many steps forward should we take. And in this post we see that Faith never really knew how deeply Mike felt for her... if she did, would she have screwed up so badly? -Dahlia

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    2. Well, that's a hard call to make, I guess (did Faith really think they were broken up). But, it didn't seem like she really thought that - she was just scared that Mike would be dumping her in the near future...but they weren't broken up at that point. Plus, if you read the part where Mike has just let Faith in his apartment so she can talk to him, he tells her, "No you don't, or you never would have planned to tell me in the first place like you claim. If you really didn't think we were together, then you never would've felt obligated to tell me about it." Faith then admits to the readers that, "Mike had a point and it forced me to be honest, not just with him but also with myself." Plus, even though Faith didn't know that Mike had never really been in love before her, she absolutely DID know that the 2 of them - in the here and now - were in love when she slept with Brad. She admits to being in love with him, and in other posts it's clear that these two are well aware how mutually serious and profound their relationship is. She knew - regarding both points. Mike is calling her out on these things and Faith is starting to feel despair as she's forced to admit the significance of her actions - and the gravity of the consequences resulting from them. Full-on, "Uh-oh. Things are never going to be the same again for us," type of deal. She feels just as strongly about Mike as vice-versa, which is why I don't get how she could have let another guy touch her while their (Mike's & Faith's) relationship was still up in the air. I think she did what she did with Brad out of anger and hurt - to lash out at Mike, regretting it immediately. But, instead of owning up to making a HUGE mistake, Faith wanted to avoid taking responsibility for her actions, trying to come up with weak rationalizations for what she did. She did that because it was easier to pretend for a while than admit she made a very serious, possibly final misstep in her relationship with Mike by impulsively sleeping with another guy. It's the rationalizations and excuses I find harder to sympathize with; it'd be easier to cut her slack if she'd just quit it with the b.s. and be honest - take responsibility.

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  6. She's pregnant ....

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    1. I'm pretty sure she's on the pill, so I doubt it. I'm with S. I think Mike might die.

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    2. I hope not. I rather he just dump her.

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  7. Amen Witchypoo!! So very well said :)

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  8. Oh no is she going to get pregnant and not know the baby daddy?

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