The End

This will be my last entry for this blog. As of yesterday, I am no longer a mistress. David broke up with me.

The break-up:
I stayed late at the office, cleaning up my office emails and checking out my personal yahoo account. I got several surprises in my yahoo email. A dating group I joined several years ago turned up three prospects. I was flattered of course, but not really serious since I had a perfectly good boyfriend. Nevertheless I answered their mails for the heck of it and one was particularly persistent. When I checked his profile, he graduated from the same university as David and I laughingly commented to a friend that I seem to have a certain appeal to men from that particular region. Anyway, I was preparing to shut down when my landline rang. It was David, sounding really peculiar. I knew it then. Even when he was asking me how my holiday went, I knew why he called.
We always break up everytime he comes back from a holiday with his family, but we always got back together after a few weeks of me tempting him and him breaking down. But I knew that this time, this was IT.
For one, I knew he was due back last Monday. Usually he would let me know when he landed, but this time, two whole days passed before he called.
And another, his problem with his family never really got resolved. Remember that before he left for the holidays, I wrote that he got found out by his wife. It turned out that he wasn’t able to deny that and his wife threatened to tell his mom. Remember also that I wrote that David loved his mom to pieces, so he begged her not to, and promised to put an end to our relationship. (His mom loved the cardigans by the way, but kept them instead of wearing them as we hoped.) His wife kept her silence and David decided that he has to make an effort for his family too. David never texted me a merry Christmas or a happy new year. He told me that he didn’t text anyone because he didn’t feel like it. He didn’t enjoy the holidays nor his long-awaited homecoming.
“Honey, if you could just see their faces, or hear them, you’ll understand why I needed to end us,” he pleaded. “It made you look bad, but you and I know our relationship wasn’t like that. It was beautiful between us, but hearing it from a different angle…I have to do this for you, for my family.”
“Couldn’t you give me at least this one weekend? I promise to let you go then. I missed you so much.” I hated it, but I begged him, weeping all the while, not caring whether anyone in the office heard me or not.
“I miss you too. Really. But honey, I already confessed to the priest.”
I couldn’t go against that. I may be a sinner, but when a person turns back to God, I know how right that decision is. Despite the heartache, hearing this relieved me of my own burden. My own conflict of love and values can now end.
“I’m sorry. I hope you understand why I couldn’t keep away from you before, I’m sorry this happened…I pray that you’ll understand someday.”
I understood. I couldn’t keep away from him either. It was a case of a wonderful love in the wrong circumstances. There was nothing sordid about our relationship. I was calling it like it is (me being a mistress), but he never treated me like I was one. As for what happened to end it, I knew this coming in, but it doesn’t make it any easier to accept. I was losing two people at the same time. My boyfriend and my bestfriend. Ironically, he was the one I needed to get over him. How unfair is that?
He asked that I be the first to put the phone down. “It would be easier for me, if I pretended that you were angry.” But I couldn’t grant him that, I wasn’t angry at him, I was sad. And so damn lonely. But I couldn’t get angry with him. How can you be angry with a person for making the right decision?
My eyes didn’t stop streaming, I couldn’t breathe, but my mind was clear – already adjusting my plans and preparing for the future – even if my heart was still bleeding.

Friends:
I prepared to go home, giving my staff instructions as I went, streaming tears and sobbing and all.
“Tell your supervisor he’ll be my OIC tomorrow. I won’t be coming in. I’m not feeling really good right now.”
At that, he dropped what he was doing. “I’ll walk you to your ride, ma’am,” he told me, clearly concerned with the way I was crying all over the place.
“Oh I’m fine dear, my eyes couldn’t stop crying, but my head is clear, promise.”
He walked me to the tricycle anyway and requested me to text him when I get home.
I did text him, as well as my best boy bud, my bestfriend, and my girlfriend.
My best boy bud was on his way home and told me he would drop by my pad. “Give me 30 minutes, I’ll be there.”
My bestfriend and my girlfriend texted encouragements to me until my boy bud called to tell me that he was downstairs. We spent two hours in his car talking. He listened while I talked, gave me a tissue while I cried, rubbed my back when I got depressed, hugged me when I felt alone. He asked me to go home with him, but I declined, not wanting my family to see my sudden crying bursts. And I wanted to purge my pad – make it more bearable to stay in, to try to lose that “love-nest” feel.

The day after:
I texted him, asking for a forwarding address where I can send his stuff. He called then, suggesting that he drop by on Saturday to pick it up. I declined.
“It’s best that I don’t see you, honey. It’ll just make things harder for us,” I told him. “Can I send it to your office?”
He agreed, apologized again, and rang off. I proceeded to clean the pad, putting his personal effects in a paper bag, crying and sighing alternately. When I was done, I went to the mall, got the shirt I promised him, and went to the bookstore to buy paper for my letter. I bought juice and a sandwich at Starbucks where I wrote him my goodbye letter. I’m afraid some parts of the paper got stained with tears, but mostly, I told him that I agreed with his decision, that I was sorry his family got hurt, but that I do not regret a single minute of our three years together. Putting the letter, my gift and his personal effects in paper bags, I went to the nearest courier and posted it to his office. Afterwards, I whiled away my time in the next mall, buying bracelets with crystals for happiness (amethysts are supposed to do that), and generally just spaced out.
I went back to my pad after a while but stayed near the pool area, reading a paperback, then made plans to meet my staff for dinner, asking him to bring the check I left at the office. We ate at McDonalds and talked about nothing in particular. But then he had to leave for a basketball game and I just gave him instructions for tomorrow, telling him that I would continue my leave and won’t be back till Monday.
I got in the door and promptly wept, missing David like hell. As if on cue, my girlfriend made plans for a water spa visit, while my bestfriend suggested dinner for tomorrow evening. I love my friends.

I’m still on leave tomorrow. I’m planning to do a confession, the last step to finally break free and start healing. And then I’ll go home to my parents, soak up some family togetherness, and meet my friends for dinner. I will live. But in the meantime, I just need to survive tonight.