twenty-something ABOUT • ARCHIVES • READER • TWITTER

In eight hours, his plane will land and, for the first time in five weeks, for the first time since we broke up, I will have to face my now-ex-boyfriend.

To say that I'm anxious would be a understandment of some hyperbole that I can't even think of right now.

Five weeks ago, when I dropped him at the airport, it was with a heavy heart. We had spent an amazing week together and I couldn't wait for those five weeks—then supposed to be six—to be over, to have my boyfriend back with me. After two-and-a-half years together, we were in a good place. We were to move in together that fall. We'd be separated for a long, hard six weeks while he took a job in New York City—but upon his return, we were to be better than ever.

Now I find it hard to believe that five weeks have passed. That I have been single for a month. I find myself dreading the moment I have to lay my eyes upon him again, and the moment after that, and all the moments that are to come in this new world where we're not together and he's coming out. Things are so messy that I don't know how I'm going to look at him—but I know that I have to.

What happened? It's easy to point to the big stuff, the stuff that pushed us over the edge. The lying and cheating and betrayal. It's easy to just point to that, to not look at those things as a symptom of trouble elsewhere in the relationship, of the baggage that two people brought to the table over and over in this attempt to be together. There's not enough distance for me to truly, in my heart, recognize that we are in two different places and we broke up because of that. We broke up—or we should have broken up—because, at 25, I'm clearer each day with what I want out of life and love, and I wasn't getting those things from my partner. I couldn't get those things from my partner.

I wish it had ended like that. I wish we could've been too mature adults and talked about all of this, and come to a mature conclusion, before things go so horribly, horribly messy.

I still hurt because of what he did. All I can do is point to it, his sins. And what he did? Perhaps someday, after all the smoke has cleared, I can understand it. Perhaps I can forgive it. But right now? It torments me every day. It makes me sick in my stomach, in my soul. I write of this now only because... well, I feel I need to.

What did he do?

He lied and he cheated. Within an open relationship, he found a way to cheat. Again. He hooked up with two men in New York and denied it. What's worse, I asked him directly about it, giving him an easy option to come clean. I asked him to tell me anything he might have to clear the air about—I asked him because I was willing, for the last time, to put my trust issues aside. To give him one more chance, to trust him. If he lied to me again, I told him, we would be over.

"Are you sure there is nothing that you have to tell me?" I asked one last time.

He said no. He swore to God.

I gave an uncharacteristic ultimatum, and he still lied to my face—err, ear. It took some cyber-trickery on my part, but a few days later, he admitted to sleeping with these men and lying about it. He cried and carried on, begged for forgiveness.

And I dumped him.

He wrote me a poem that night. And beyond that, he continually professed his love, saying how much he wanted and needed me, over the phone, in emails, and in text messages. It was a tough time, but soon we slipped easily into a kind of friendship. We casually, and through the distance, allowed each other back into our lives as cautious friends.

But I would later learn that, within a week of our break-up, he had staged a betrayal of a... brutality I had thought only existed in soap operas. He let some aging actor, a stranger, one of those he cheated on me with—he let him take something that I was never allowed, not really, in our years together. He let this stranger, on their second meeting, fuck him. And then he told me all about it.

To think of it still makes my fists clench. Makes me want to cry. Makes my heart sink, and break a little more. I don't think I've ever felt anything stronger than the anger I felt when he told me, anger which was just poorly masked pain. I screamed and howled into the phone at him as he sobbed, begging for forgiveness.

It was not a pretty sight.

And despite his vow to never see this man again, he's continued to. They appear to be dating. Of all the thousands of gay men in New York, he had to chose to pursue something with this one—one that, technically, brought about the end of our relationship, and the one that he let fuck him. He could have fucked half the city, behind my back, while we were still together, and it wouldn't have hurt as much as this does.

I wonder if I can ever get over this. I mean, I know I will get over him, over us, but this betrayal, it's sort of shaken me to the core. I know I will get over this, all of it—I have to—but right now, I can't help but wonder how...

He returns, tonight, farther along in his process than at any point in our relationship. He returns a betrayer, not a friend, not the boy that tried but couldn't give me what I needed. He returns from five weeks in the Big Apple a new man, leaving behind a new "friend" in the city along with the remains of our relationship. Two and a half years later, he's coming out—and, just as I feared, away from me. After all this time, after all that work, I've lost my best friend and my truest love. I feel like I'm left with nothing but a few good memories that are overshadowed by a really big hurt.

I need to face him. Tonight, at the airport. I'm as prepared to do this as I'll ever be, and it's on my terms as much as I can muster. Maybe, once I see his face, I can leave him—and all of this hurt—behind me. I don't expect closure, not tonight, maybe not ever... I don't even expect confrontation. I just expect it to happen.

I just need to see him again. Then I'll know my fate.