by Eileen Kardos
And as it turned out, it would have been in your best interest to have done your homework earlier on, rather than waiting until everything festered into that awful sea of discomfort. At least you had googled him—as you had every other man you had dated— you found nothing alarming. Only that in addition to being incredibly attractive, he was rich. In fact, he gave off no warning signs during those first few meetings, so how were you to know you would wind up with a serious case of buyers remorse and a broken heart?
And maybe you should have paid attention to your logical side when he told you he had herpes. And maybe you should have found suspect the way he delivered the news—such nonchalance—“And I have never, in seven years, transmitted it to anyone…I mean, I take Valtrex everyday.” Thinking about it now, you have a history of ignoring reason. It is no surprise that you had sex without using condoms and allowed him to ejaculate inside of you because he wanted to play “let’s get knocked up.”
And every time you walked into his house, it was as if you were in a lucid dream—his dream. And it was as if nothing that happened in that house could ever transcend into everyday life. It was sublime and not real. Most likely, it was the drugs and the booze and the exhilaratingly strange sex. And maybe it was the fact that under the ceiling mirror in the “Buddha room” you looked more beautiful than you had in your entire life—the two of you as stunning as Brad and Angelina in the infamous W shoot. But whatever it was that happened in that house, in that lucid dream, in that sublime non-reality, you were never in control, never yourself.
And maybe it was a red flag when he told you he was raised in a cult. And maybe it was a red flag that you didn’t speak much on the phone. And maybe it was a red flag when he canceled dinner plans after you broke the news he had given you herpes. And maybe it was a red flag when he came down with thrush and his doctor ordered an HIV test. Just maybe, it was a red flag when he couldn’t seem to understand why you didn’t really feel like putting an ad on a swingers website after you had contracted herpes, and he had canceled the dinner plans, and he had come down with thrush and had to get an HIV test.
And isn’t it rather arbitrary to think of all the things you should have done when nothing can change the past?
Because when I finally decided to do my homework and found out he had divorced a stripper three days before meeting me and that the entire time we were dating he was seeing other women—looking for a second girlfriend so he could have a polyamourous relationship. Because when I found all that out, and lost my cool, and threatened to plaster his business parking lots with flyers about him, and actually made a fake MySpace page, which I took down before I started making friend requests to every woman on the Connecticut shore line.
Because even after all that drama, and we kept on sleeping together, and I almost died from the MRSA I contracted from him, and when he finally knocked me up and I then had a miscarriage.
Because after all that—and I was the one in the wrong, and I was the one who was crazy, and I was the one who had the problems—I just wanted to look at him and tell him I know that he hates who he is and he shouldn’t. That even though he lives in a dream, the reality is, it is really real, and we have to deal with the consequences—we have to take responsibility. So when your dreams come to life, do you think it is fate or coincidence? When all of these things happen in such a short time, with just one person, what is the message? Is it to run?
Or is it that maybe I could have just loved you for all that you are, had you given me the chance and been honest from the beginning?
