“These wounds won’t seem to heal.

This pain is just too real.

There’s just too much that time cannot erase.”

“My Immortal” ~ Evanescence

Reeling myself in, my heart desperately fought for tomorrow—the picture had a purpose; a reason behind it. That this wasn’t a true united front but rather an attempt for me to contact them in outrage. Nothing less than a complete provocation, hidden behind the lie of harassment. How could Anya go along with this after everything? Especially knowing I still loved her? My heart exposed more than ever, in the CD’s I burned and the letters I wrote. Jackson had to have forced her hand again to destroy us against her will. And, likely against her knowledge—her and Jackson were not friends on Facebook. As the days passed, my mind wrested control of my heart—she had to know and even allowed it to happen. She had to, simply because he would never allow it, us, to happen. The smile on her face sitting on the lap of a man who desecrated her soul, as if he never hurt her a day in his life, felt like being thrown into the heart of a star. Anya told me one time she was not a very good actress but putting on a show for people was too second nature to be anything less. If this picture of perception wasn’t meant to break me, it was meant to leave me in pieces.

All the momentum and hope built up with the new consulting job, quickly eroded, relying more than ever on Vicodin to get me through. Continually denying my codependency on the pills caused a rift between my mother and I. No matter how many times I explained they were needed to keep focused on my job she refused to buy it, threatening to pull the plug on them. Failing to recognize I was now a vendor not an employee and that a payroll run no longer meant payday for me, I fell behind on my rent, car and credit card payments. When I did get paid, the cash was used to pay my bills instead of my accumulating income taxes. As my life began to unravel after a moment of good feelings, a neurosis began to settle in, overcome by the reality of her love for me. After all we shared, and after all she told me about him that encouraged me to be in her life; after all she allowed me to feel for her, and even after nearly a year since we broke up, this picture should’ve never been posted to possibly be seen with my eyes. I knew people usually smiled in pictures, but my heart didn’t expect a smile from her with him. No doubt this picture would be a sweet one in most circumstances. This pic was likely meant to make the kids smile more than anyone. But the problem was she allowed someone to have deep feelings for her—the only thing making it wrong.

Unable to sleep after she impaled me with a smile, in front of the man she led me to believe wronged her, left me calling in sick the next day. Unable to concentrate on anything other than the deep hatred for my current surrounding, I vowed to find a way to leave behind the torture chamber I currently occupied. Time wouldn’t be able to wipe away all the memories surrounding me—I had to go. Using the day to find a new place to live, a less expensive bachelor pad, I set myself up for a move by the end of the month, only a week later. After moving to my new place, it did little to make me feel better. Migraines became a daily occurrence, forcing me to leave my desk to rid myself of what little my stomach had in it these days—my continued Vicodin usage increasing their intensity. I couldn’t care but fight through it, or lose the rest of the hope I had left to survive this. Miraculously, no one in the office sensed anything wrong with me.

There was a real possibility I had to consider, to get me through it all—that Jackson was behind this picture. Anya told me during an exchange that he would “come after me” if he knew and the Facebook profile picture provided evidence of that. He had to have hoped I’d seek him out and give him the power he craved over Anya and myself. Although I threatened Anya I would talk to Jackson, there was a difference between wanting to and actually doing it. If there were no kids involved, I would’ve easily confronted him, but Katie and Andrew were the reason for reeling myself in. Then again, if there were no Katie and Andrew, I truly believed Anya would have already told Jackson, relieving me of that duty. The feeling of being left unprotected by Anya is what was driving me slowly to my grave—that it was up to me to defend the motives for being in her life—reasons she made known to me without reservations. Little did I know those reservations would morph into misrepresentations. In order to keep moving forward, I found ways to convince myself he forced her into posting this picture because of all the previous ones she removed—likely because he sensed she was still harboring feelings for me. Anya may have been physically with Jackson, but emotionally she belonged to me.

Remembering the time when Anya told me that Carolyn believed I wouldn’t be a good man for her simply because I never raised kids of my own before. But what experience did Jackson have raising a ten and twelve-year-old before she met him? He did it on the fly, only showing up for games and performances, leaving his wife to teach her son how to play baseball. If he couldn’t leave a flexible job wanting to at least teach his son how to play a sport, how could he be matched against my perceived lack of parenting experience? I could basically do nothing and be there more for Andrew than he had. Jackson’s “holier than thou” attitude really irritated me to the very core of my being—a perception existing simply because he was a father and I had yet to be. By forcing Anya to post that picture on her Facebook account was an attempt to contact me by provoking me to contact him—nothing more and nothing less. Refusing to play his game, I contemplated ways to drive him to contact me, but had nothing. People seemed to have a hard time understanding my disdain for Jackson, but they didn’t know him the way I did. All they saw was him as a father and model executive, they didn’t see how he ruined another man’s marriage and how he mentally abused his wife for years. For him to believe it was “cheaper to keep her”, letting Anya go out to bars to hurt decent caring men like myself, it disgusted me beyond disgust itself. It shouldn’t have taken a man like myself in Anya’s life to suddenly make him announce he'd lose an arm if he could change things between them. Why did it take me coming into your life to suddenly make you start repenting for what you put her through? Didn’t you have Yom Kippur, a day of atonement for the last twelve years to start doing that? You needed her to wreck another man’s life before taking responsibility for anything in yours?

Jackson pitched from the angle that I desired to break up his family, failing to see his own role in the situation. He likely threatened to take the kids from Anya, not because of a great love only a father could have, but to control her. Of course, there was no question he loved them; he didn’t want to pay child support. He threw his money into horses, boats and investment accounts to show his love, but bailed at times he really needed to be there—leaving his life partner to shuttle the kids back and forth in hazardous conditions and unsafe places. I just knew too much to feel sorry for him and I refused to. His one goal in life was to control and hold power over people, something I refused to give him. In reality, I took it easy on him and he should’ve been grateful a guy like myself was the one who loved her. There were many times I could’ve done far more than I did with Anya, yet I reeled myself in. Not for his benefit and definitely not for mine, but for hers. What married man, with a young child and another on the way, has an affair with a married woman? Then afterwards, for years instead of repenting, continued to chip away at his wife’s heart? After all Anya made me privy to, all the money in the world couldn’t hide the fact he was a bad person, let alone a terrible husband. What kind of man puts the mother of his children through this? This was why I fought for her—never to break up a family but to break Anya away from her dependence on him. He sure looked good from where he stood, but the foundation was faulty.

Jackson had something under his sleeve—he had to know there was a part of her he could never have again. A part of her he had the audacity to believe he was entitled to. He knew there existed a part of Anya he couldn’t touch or reach anymore and he wanted to destroy me for weakening her dependence on him. A monster piece of her he no longer possessed because it belonged to me—the man who truly loved her. He had to have known all she shared with me, the truth about who he really was—unable to retrieve the illusion he presented to others. Seeking its return through provocation, the picture was an attempt to pit me against Anya—to get me in his corner believing she couldn’t have loved me. Weakening me into believing she really did play me for a fool.

I hated the fact I had to stand here and take this—that he continued to hurt the one I held in my heart. Anya knew I disliked him more than anything because of all he put the mother of his children through over the years. Jackson Caiaphas was a rotten husband and deserved to be the lonely one in all of this. His cheating ways even cut Anya’s character into half, infecting her with his lies and manipulations, bringing unnecessary stress into her life. Jackson would’ve rather seen her remain with someone she didn’t love, than to be with someone who made her happy. He simply couldn’t have loved Anya; he was too in love with himself. This wasn’t about me at all. This had nothing to do with Anya meeting me; this was all about Jackson. The man Anya married and the decisions he made to hurt his family. If he intended to make the mother of his children look bad in any way, his reputation would belong to me—the one who held the truth about him. All I wanted now was for Anya to be happy in life—for her to be with someone who didn’t diminish her character or who inspired her to potentially break the hearts of her children. Jackson had no right to put Anya in the position to feel like she broke the hearts of her children, when it was his actions that caused her to seek real love. For her to want to don the ring of a man who truly loved her.

At midnight for the next several days, I started receiving an error message on my Blackberry phone that read “null exception”—was it a phone tap? I hadn’t texted her in eleven months with no plans to, unless she contacted me. This is likely the reason why she hadn’t responded to me at all—fearful he would trace her call or text. Well, I hated to break it to Jackson, but Anya said three words to me I took very seriously; “I love you”—trusting those words with every part of my being. I couldn’t allow myself to believe for half a millisecond Anya would’ve fallen in love with someone if it jeopardized the happiness of her children. Anya allowed and encouraged me to fall deeply in love with her to break up a family? There’s just no way it was possible—no way. Breaking up a family was not the decision I made by choosing to be in her life. If I knew that, I would’ve never given her a chance at happiness—choosing only to be in her life to save her from herself. I loved only to save a mother from a life of hopelessness and despair. If the jury was out on me for that crime, then consider me guilty. This wasn’t about Anya running off and being with me—this was about her reclaiming that spirit of joy when being there and for her kids. To be there with a permanent smile; not with a backward glance at the past. If she ultimately chose to be with someone else, there was nothing I could do about that, but staying with Jackson cut me deeper than any knife ever could. He knew as well as anyone did, when you have phone taps and fake Facebook profiles, there’s no trust let alone a marriage to salvage. The only thing left to fight for was a lie.

As much as I believed the picture was meant to provoke me, I desperately needed to hear from Anya that Jackson put her up to this—my loneliness and sadness refusing to make excuses for her. To know all those times I stuck up for her, fighting with those who questioned her love for me, couldn’t be a misdirection. As the days passed, the silence only grew louder, feeding my addiction to Vicodin more than ever. When my mother began hiding her pills from me, knowing my struggle to function without them, the tension between us smoldered. Each time she caved in, I’d promise her to get off them soon, but lying to her and myself had become second nature. To make matters worse, my consulting client was not liquid enough to pay me but once a month. Tormented by the picture in my head and struggling to make ends meet, my business aspirations began to deteriorate. After my bank account went into a negative balance for the first time in my life, collection calls came my way threatening to destroy my perfect credit score. Three-day notices to ‘pay or quit’ taped to the door of my new bachelor pad at the beginning of each month became common occurrences. As my life unraveled, sustained only by a white capsule every three hours, the cold touch of reality penetrated my mind—what if this was Anya’s intention? What if this wasn’t Jackson’s idea at all?

As consistent migraines and stomach ailments threatened to end my consulting work, the end of my rope left me with burned palms. People had it much worse than I ever did, yet I was too broken to recognize it. How fair was it that she was surrounded by love and I was left strangled by it? There was no way to continue down this path of great anxiety—I needed to do something. Sure, I could believe she still loved me, popping pills to get me through the times it didn’t feel that way, but how long could I keep that up before there were no more days left to believe? I still loved Anya very much, and if she ever came back to me, I’d take her back without question. We were always in this together; I could never turn my back on her. But what about my forever belief in what love was and what love could never be? The thing that separated me from those who claimed to know what love was? The love I felt strong enough to die for? Anya’s love ruined me for all other women. After all I experienced with her, how could I ever love someone else? Each time I’d try, I’d see her face and miss her scent. There was no loneliness greater than this.

Shortly after the picture was posted, Anya never came up as a friend suggestion again, breaking me even further. The reward of woe bestowed upon the man who was loyal even when she wasn’t. When Carolyn blocked me from her Facebook account, something I never expected, my depression kicked into another gear knowing the united front was growing. How come I never saw this happening to me? The reason why the past is never behind you as much as you try to believe it is—it’s the greatest predictor of the future. I should have looked at Anya the night she told me he cheated on her and said “that’s what you get for marrying a man for his money”. But no, the big-hearted fool who believed in love cared for her instead, and all she did was use me to fill the void. The very thing I warned her never to do, she still did. Anya married what mattered most to her, and what apparently still mattered most to her. Would she have still been with him if he didn’t have money? Not in a million years, and every day that passed, this truth only strengthened.

My first consulting client began to morph into pure drudgery, not because of the work, but the mental fatigue hampering my drive and focus. Whenever my head pounded or my stomach turned, I’d run off to my car, passing out without a care if I lost the work. Filing for bankruptcy and even worse, asking to move back home left me paralyzed. A year later, here I was, with Anya on my mind far too much to piece myself back together. All of it, not just the picture, made zero sense to me. How could she have genuinely opened up her entire life to me, only to stay? How could two whole years in an extramarital relationship, with over fifty visits to my apartment, not be enough for her to leave? When Katie and Andrew came to mind, her decision made more sense, but the now physical grip this had on me made it harder to understand. How could she allow anyone to care and feel so much for her, if she was willing to sacrifice it all? How come she couldn’t understand another heart was involved, not only hers? Is that why she lovebombed me? So I’d be too bound by love to not understand why she’d leave? Understanding the sacrifice she made for her kids was easy if nothing happened between us, or if our relationship lasted only a few weeks or months, but after two years? The gym used to be my place of refuge but I couldn’t even get through a workout without feeling distraught and out of sorts—opting to head home to pop a pill instead. How could I be this fucked up a year later? After all these years of believing otherwise, it appeared my father was a prophet; I was a failure; a loser. My father used to beat me up mentally at my lowest points, I never expected Anya, the woman who claimed to love me forever, would ever dare to leave me at mine.

The second holiday season without her felt worse than the first, my loneliness manifesting itself to nothing less than cancer of the mind. The more I thought about the picture, tormented by its intent, the more it purged memories of things she said to me—things I seriously considered for the first time. What if Anya married Jackson strictly for money and not for love? What if she was the reason for his infidelities? Fearing the truth behind this, my heart kicked in to tell me it’s what Jackson wanted me to believe. If his goal was to drive my love for Anya out of it, believing she deceived me, it would only give Jackson what he wanted to achieve—if he forced Anya to post the picture. He wanted me to question all she ever felt for me—his new life’s mission—to steal away all the love and happiness she ever felt for me. How could I just let him do that this easily? He wanted me to hate her, hoping I’d do that with a knee jerk reaction to effectively give him the power to make it happen. As much pain as the picture brought, as my life crumbled around me, I couldn’t allow myself to believe she’d hurt me like this. If I did, Jackson won.

With each passing hour though, Jackson’s attack on my mind penetrated my defenses the more I recalled more of the things Anya told me. The time she said I made her happy then told me not to blame Jackson for my unhappiness. Who should I blame? Myself? For trusting in her love and all she ever told me about him? The time after she said “goodbye” but also letting me know she would now “suffer forever”. Why place the blame on me when she made the choice to give up? Was my job to make her marriage more pleasant just so she could stay with him in misery? What favor would I have done for her by just walking away? None. Zero. It would’ve just been another guy, adding one more heartbreak to the list. She was the one who described what we had as “special” and “not of this world”. If she truly believed that, how could she ever feel she betrayed her kids? Or snap at me to never include her with the general public when I only pressured her to do the right thing? If not for me, if not for us, for herself. Why did she give me any grief anytime I “pressured” her if she believed if I left her that she would “suffer forever”? She even claimed the quickest way to get over someone was to meet someone new. How could she have ever suggested that if she truly believed what we had was special and out of this world? How could she discount all my feelings and say such a thing after two years of love? So much love, that we had major disagreements over it?

After she initiated and pursued a relationship with me then claiming she “betrayed her kids”, essentially handed off the burden of breaking up her family to me. Now, she hid behind a husband, his money and a picture, as if he had never cheated on her when she was pregnant. A pregnancy I knew damn well and scientifically speaking, led her to having a premature birth. How could her love, if it truly was love, ever lead me to breaking up a family for simply wanting to be with the one I loved—the same one who claimed she loved me too? What kind of man did she think I was? Did she hold the belief since she met me at a bar that all I’d want was a one- night stand? As if, that’s all we were good enough for? She even told me one time that she was the woman and I was the man, and I should know to never upset her. Did she ever consider the respect she should have for my feelings? That because I'm a man meant I’m not allowed to feel? Her husband was the stoic asshole who didn’t give a fuck about her, not me. Oh, until I came into his life, turning him into a man who’d lose an arm to change things—twelve fucking years later. What a joke. Why didn’t she have enough common sense to recognize by loving me as much as she did, that it would hurt me badly if she stayed for any reason? That it would be just fine because she would be hurt in the end, like she always was when she eventually spurned men away for Jackson’s money? She always countered with “I couldn’t help it”. In actuality though, she was also saying “I couldn’t help but to completely disregard how that would make you feel if I stayed”. Did she honestly believe my feelings would never grow for her? Or worse yet, she knew they would and use that as an excuse to leave? That I would never desire more, the more I fell in love with her? How could she have harassed my heart and mind this way?

In regards to having a Facebook account she told me she was a “private” person. If that was true, how could she tell me, a complete stranger, all the things she did about her husband? She even told me one time “I hope you don’t feel sorry for me”, yet it never stopped her from telling me her husband had cheated on her several times. If you didn’t want me to feel sorry for you, why share things that would allow me to care and fall in love with you? On the first night we met, I hadn’t known her a minute before she told me her “boyfriend” broke up with her—and she hoped I didn’t feel sorry for her? Even the last day we spoke she told me, “I will suffer forever”, and she hoped I didn’t feel sorry for her? The truth was, I didn’t feel sorry for her, I cared about her and if I had the power to change things for the better for her, then I’d do everything in my power to. My reward for loving her, for caring about her happiness above my own? A picture of her sitting on the lap of the vilest man on the face of the planet to me.

As far as making a decision to be with me, something she told me with certainty she would do if I swept her off her feet, she tells me, “I’m not God, I don’t know.” You couldn’t see it was me God brought into your life? If she couldn’t see that, then she never believed what we shared was special but rather a regret. When she told me “you could tell him we’ve slept together every day for two years and it won’t matter”, it shook me up knowing she believed I intended to tell him we slept together. What would I ever get out of that? I could understand how it could scare her if I did, but what kind of man did she think I was? I just wanted him to know, after he got into my Facebook account and after two years together, the truth—she wanted to wear my ring. If he went in search of the truth he should have it, not the details. I loved Anya, so what did she think I stood to gain by telling him about our sexual relationship? All he needed to know was that she was in love with me—leaving it up to him to fill in the blanks.

When she told me “I’ve never been on a budget”, it brought me back to the time Denise told me “I need a man to take care of me”. It should’ve told me the real reason she stayed with Jackson—the reason she’d sit on his lap like a prostitute would. She gave me the reason why she stayed and I ignored it, thinking I meant the world to her. She told me that the weekend she was surrounded by her well to do Korean family, so maybe that had a little something to do with her statement. I would’ve been happy to be on a budget if it meant I could spend the rest of my life with Anya—the real difference between her form of love and mine. She even told me “We could never get married because I’d lose the alimony payments—we would never make enough money on your income”. If it mattered to her, then money should be a factor in her decision, but she should’ve shared this with me far sooner than she did. And if this mattered to her more than anything, especially after I questioned it and she led me to believe otherwise, she should’ve never let me feel a single thing for her. And definitely never giving me any grief after walking away before we reconnected, instead of telling me “you broke my heart”. She should’ve told me she raised her kids in a fashion that they got the best of things in life. She should’ve told me the real reason she was still with Jackson and not because no one would be there for her if she left him. That she was there for his money and what it provided her and the kids with. That she stayed with him because she never had to live on a budget. Yet, it was me she didn’t trust? The one who was loyal to her in his dreams? The one who shared every single thought he had, good or bad? How could I now only be worthy of her silence through a picture?

I would’ve rather heard the words “I hate you.” than the time she told me “I don’t want to face anything anymore” after allowing me to fall deeply in love with her. Leading to my financial ruin and a mental anguish I needed drugs to help get me through each day, even putting myself over a mother who while in the greatest battle of her life had to worry about her son. After two years of trusting in all we shared and that the words “I love you” meant something to her, she couldn’t face anything anymore leaving me to face the destruction her love left behind. It seemed my greatest fear was confirmed that day—her love for me only existed on her terms and conditions, and never mine. I’m not saying she didn’t care for me, and I’m not saying she never loved me. I’m sure it was and felt like love to her—it just was contingent upon being a secret. Once the curtains fell, her love wasn’t behind them, if it ever was. For her to suddenly not want to face anything anymore, after knowing I was in her life, resonated loudly—my feelings mattered very little to her; only wanting a love without consequence. If she didn’t have to face any consequences, she loved me forever, even willing to place her ashes out to sea only when she could no longer be questioned, or, face anything anymore. While I was willing to die for her, to do whatever it took regardless of what anyone would think. Once Jackson found out, she crumbled, blaming me for why she would “suffer forever”.

“All I know is that I’m in love with you” she told me one time while sifting through our emotional anguish. But, what else did she need to know when that’s all I needed to know? Unfortunately, there seemed to be a lot more than she led me to believe. I think she knew at this moment she would never leave, that love wasn’t enough. And if the consequences of that love became costly, she would leave me without a moment’s hesitation, opting for a memory over reality.

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At this moment, I remembered all of her words—words that will affect me until I meet the ultimate darkness. Words now leaving me to question her honesty and sincerity.

“You’ll meet someone else.” As if I fell in love with people every day.

“This isn’t you against him!” As if she would be there if she had to be on a budget.

“You’re immature.” As if not getting a divorce after sexual intimacy with another for two years was mature.

“I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart for hurting you.” She was only sorry because she feared her children would learn about us. She always felt she was honest from the beginning.

“I love you.” If you don’t understand or respect the kind of weight these three words carry then they should never be said. They have to stand for everything, never meaning nothing.

“I don’t know.” If one could say “I love you” the words “I don’t know” could never exist.

“You’re not the solution.” If love was not the solution, then what was? Love seemed to be the solution in Laguna Beach, San Diego and San Francisco. So, staying in your marriage after all we’ve shared, is?

“You’ve ruined my hope and life.” Yet, she could never make a simple promise to be with me, choosing to believe love was nothing more than a ghost.

I then found myself back to when she referred to me as being “immoral” for pushing her to live an honest life if she truly loved me. The married woman who approached me at a bar, made a date with me and loved me as if she had never been married a day in her life called me immoral. The same woman who made me feel bad for leaving her alone at a bar because she was married and told me I broke her heart referred to me as immoral. As if the only true act of immorality was to leave her husband, and the two years worth of acts she initiated were not. Even after all that, I would’ve never called her “immoral”. I loved her too much to ever call her that, defending her honor against anyone, even my own mother. Her reasons for falling in love with me were valid and human, not immoral in any sense of the word. If Jackson had been a loving, faithful husband, then she acted immorally, but falling out of love with her soul’s tormentor was not an immoral act. The man who ruined her hope and life, but cheating on her while she was pregnant and never repenting until twelve years later after I had come into her life was immoral. Her own husband was the one who wanted her to suffer forever without love. If she didn’t love him, then she could love no one. Jackson was the only immoral one.

The last thing I remembered, was when Anya told me it was beyond scary to imagine never hearing or seeing from me ever again. Yet, as scary as she claimed it to be, I only heard from her one time over the last year. That was the truth; that was the reality. The scariest of all certainties—Theresa and the rest, the outsiders, knew something I refused to accept; that Anya truly didn’t love me and she may have never did. That her love existed on the grounds that it remains a secret—why Anya told me I had no grounds. There was a singular truth about love—it would’ve stopped at nothing. Love would’ve known, or at least fought to know, we weren’t about breaking up a family or hurting kids. Especially after allowing and encouraging someone to fall deeply in love with her after telling them they had broken her heart. If she truly loved me, wouldn’t she had known this?

After mulling over the message behind the picture, in the midst of my own life’s misery after falling into financial trouble, my mother’s illness and an addiction to a drug I used to alleviate reality with, there was one more letter that now needed to be written. The most honest, and most difficult letter I will ever write. I needed to know the truth—the message behind the picture. A year later, I was only living to pass time before I died—a defeated man with one last letter to write. One last letter to make sense of three years of feelings. There would be no more rose petals, no more CD’s and no more apologies. There was no more money to be left on the table. All I’ve done over the last year was give myself false hope, alienating those who were brave enough to be honest with me. The mental anguish has become intolerable to the point I didn’t even know myself anymore. This letter could not be accusatory or attack her in any way. She needed to feel comfortable enough to tell me the truth no matter how much inner turmoil stirred within me.

Slowly and surely, she began to fall out of love the minute she felt pressure from me. The day I wanted her to be honest with Jackson, was the day she came clean. She only loved me with her heart and soul as long as she had the safety net of her marriage—I’ve never lived on a budget. A part of me couldn’t blame her, but to work on her marriage after all we shared was the greatest insult and why I questioned her love. This letter had to remove her from out of the cocoon of silence. But, was I courageous enough to lose all I ever hoped for and believed in? This letter would be a Christ like sacrifice for me. Was there a way this letter could ensure me of the truth yet leave some hope? Did she threaten to divorce him with any real intention to or did she just use me as leverage if he ever divorced her? Who in their right mind wanted to fall in love with someone they could never be with? Who in their right mind wanted to fall in love with someone they had to share with someone else? No, I never loved Anya out of pity, it was done out of trust in her love for me. I hated to take a black or white stance on a gray situation, but if you loved someone, you’re with that person; never leaving them alone to suffer without you. You run to them and never from them. I’m not saying she didn’t like me a lot, but how could she have ever called it love?

Anya knew how to love someone, but she never knew what it meant to love someone. Anya gave her kids everything they wanted because she loved them. Could she then understand how and why I didn’t feel loved at times? Or did she gaslight me the way her husband did? Her soulmate couldn’t even secure the promise of one day. Love knew no obstacles—it was stronger than anything standing in its way. I was happy Anya loved herself, but she loved herself way too much to love me enough to ever be with me. She found many reasons to keep living a lie but never a reason to be with me. I may have never been the solution in her eyes, but I was always her truth. A person in love with me would’ve never told me “it doesn’t matter” or “there’s nothing I can do” or “it is what it is”; and especially, “he’d never allow it”, because she never would allow him not to.

Anya got her idea of love from music, books and movies, not from reality. It was why she opted for the fantasy. When threatened with reality, she shrieked in horror like Fay Wray. It now appeared I fell in love with a gifted magician, the greatest illusionist that ever lived. While sitting at my computer attempting to put my feelings to screen, recalling our trip to San Diego naturally came to mind. After another dreamlike night together, one allowing me to feel closer to her, it should’ve never felt the way it did days later. Feeling like a jilted woman, dealing with an unsettling anxiety while she partied, as if we never shared a thing, on St. Patrick’s Day with her husband and their neighbors. I couldn’t shake that memory, reeling in uneasiness all because I trusted in her unhappiness—even taking the blame for hurting her. Over time, our love only seemed to represent a transfer of unhappiness, from her to me. Is that something love would ever dare to do? It wasn’t the fact she went out with friends for St. Patrick’s Day that pained me, it was the fact she kept it from me because she knew it would hurt me. It opened my eyes to the reality; she had no problem hiding things from me. It was also why she claimed to never have lied to me before—she couldn’t be guilty of telling a lie if she kept it off the record. After seeing how she defended Jackson more than she ever defended me, I’m certain she didn’t care much for my feelings, if at all. If I were to find out, she’d just take the easy route and walk away instead of stopping it. While trying to remain humble throughout it all for nearly two years, she humiliated me on a daily basis—truths I would never know of unless I asked. If she truly wanted me to let her go, why not be honest about all the things that would hurt me? I’d have no choice but to run for my life because she certainly didn’t care about it. I always found when she would tell me “when you hurt, I hurt” to be part of our connection and sweet. Little did I know it was her way to feel less guilt all those times she went right back into the life she told me she hated. The life she made me feel like the solution for. I understood being behind her kids, but her husband and their neighbors, too? I understood they represented future votes for Jackson, but after two years it was unacceptable to keep living such a lie. If Anya couldn’t believe in our love, what could she ever believe in?

All I could do while crafting the letter each night, was to take her “love” at face value. All the silence. No letters. Not even a single text character or solo ring of the phone to just say hello. It’s not the fact she stayed that bothered me—she had that right. It was the misrepresentations she made to get me where she wanted me to be. If I meant as much to her as she claimed. If I truly was her everything. If what we shared was truly special and not of this world—she would’ve found a way to keep our love alive. The photo seemed to be an admission—there was some truth to my stories and conclusions. I had to ask myself would I have ever backed away if Anya questioned my love? Never.

Anya told me she put herself out there along with her heart; that she risked everything to be with me. But, if she knew all along Jackson would never allow it, did she truly risk anything she hadn’t already lost? I didn’t just risk losing everything, I lost everything. So much so, my life turned into a mere afterthought; with the conviction I didn’t want to be around for the next thing to tear me into pieces.

After two years of the greatest love I’ve ever known, I felt like a criminal--an intruder; the enemy. The one who led her to betray her kids by pushing her into a world of honesty. I now learned why her indecision existed—no matter how much I cared, loved, respected and honored her, she never viewed me as the solution. Jackson’s ability to provide for her and the kids is all that ever mattered to her. He could’ve brought her back the Ebola virus and she would’ve never left him. The hardest thing to accept was knowing that love simply knows. Love always knows and what Anya felt for me wasn’t love, it only felt that way because Jackson gave her a free pass. Little did I know, it was me who had everything to lose. If Jackson would never allow it then she stood to lose nothing she hadn’t already lost years ago. She could not have been in love with me, and at the same time, willing to give herself to someone else—especially a man who chipped her heart away for years. Love would have shown up at my door by now; been at my gate like she did at five on a Saturday morning. How could she share with me all she did, allow me to feel so much, and never know? To never see all I gave her as a solution to love her life? She wanted to remain friends and have lunch every once in a while? After all we shared, I was only good enough for a lunch date once in a while? How could she ever get upset at me when I questioned her love when I was never the solution in the first place? Love didn’t just give up. It took a hiatus every now and then, but it never gives up. If he wouldn’t allow it, it was because she allowed him to not allow it. Love knew only pride and never shame.

As long as love fit in her schedule, and didn’t pull her in a direction she didn’t want to go, it was love according to her. Upon completing the letter, even after writing it ten times over, I struggled mailing it knowing it carried a finality to it. If I didn’t send it to her though, would she ever know what love was? She needed to know all I’ve come to learn in her silence—how love was equitable. Without equity, it could never be love just because she felt it. Two had to feel it, not just one. I’m not saying it didn’t feel like love to her—I was certain it did, but feeling and being were two different things. We both needed to know what love was, the reason I wrote the letter.

Overwhelmed by great despair, writing Barney’s article became an impossible task. While Sal Chinchilla and Barney called me every other day to see where I was with the article, my focus was scattered like debris from an explosion. With my mind in a terrible mess, I concentrated on writing a letter I hoped to be wrong about. A non-accusatory message, fair to both Anya and myself, that had to prompt a response from her to know where I stood—likely revealing where I always stood. Her silence over the last year had taken a severe toll for a notably solitary reason—Denise silence sounded the same. Anya had no business allowing me to feel so deeply if she ever planned to abandon me. I understood, sometimes things don’t work out and people got their hearts broken every day. I knew I wasn’t special enough to be precluded from heartbreak. Things sometimes work out and sometimes they didn’t. But this heartbreak was something she knew I walked away from to avoid experiencing. The representations she made to me about her marriage should never allow her to work on things with Jackson for anyone’s sake after all she allowed and encouraged me to feel, and to know. Anya never misrepresented the state of her marriage—there was no doubt she never lied about that. What she did misrepresent was what she would do if someone gave her what she asked of them. After asking me to fight for her, our breakup was akin to a scrupulous sales person’s bait and switch routine. Her children were in her life long before she made a date to tell me about her husband’s transgressions. For her to use her kids as an excuse to stay with Jackson after two years of having an emotional bond with her was wrong. I didn’t care if it was fifteen years later, a picture of her and Jackson should never be posted for my eyes to ever see—not after all she allowed and encouraged me to feel for her. Without question, I never wanted her kids to hate her, but I trusted her to never allow me to fall in love with her if that was even a remote possibility. There would only be one man in her life for the remainder of time that would last longer than her first marriage did. Posting a picture of her sitting on Jackson’s lap, after all she left me with, after allowing me to fight for her, was the very essence of wrong.

Anya left me to learn what I already knew before we met—the world revolves around money, not love. Those, who loved like I did, would only be left out in the cold. The green paper with pictures on it was all that mattered to people—love didn’t mean a thing. Anya was right, marriage and love were unrealistic. In today’s society, only having money made love a rational notion. As much as she tried to hide it from me, Anya believed in never being on a budget, not love.

I didn’t wreck marriages and didn’t date married women. I made an exception for her trusting she would leave if she fell in love with me—that she would never put me in the position to be looked upon as such—that all she needed was someone to be there for her. The reality was she should’ve left without anyone being there for her—I gave her the real gift. There were no thrills in dating a married woman for me: I fell in love; deeply in love. Seeing married couples now, or even people who held hands, only inspires a head shake from me and the belief they had no clue what love really was. They just doll it up, making it look pretty for the masses, but none of them would ever die for it in the end. Money and sex, a form of legal prostitution is all love is these days yet these same people would judge me for loving a married woman—faulting me for knowing she was married and falling in love with her anyway, even though I wasn’t the married one. Anya and Jackson would be always be viewed as the victims, and the one who loved was the villain in the story wanting to break up a family—nobody’s hero. Forever judged by perception, not by truth.

I believed, maybe foolishly, if there was a God that I did nothing wrong in His eyes. Regardless of the times I’ve been called immoral by the person who allowed and encouraged me to be such. Our society had it wrong about what constituted adultery, and if there truly was a God, I put my soul on the line for it. If Anya was never cheated on and she simply just fell out of love with Jackson, there was no escaping my sin. Even if she was cheated on but still loved Jackson hoping to make it work, my sin was undeniable—but I was told there was no marriage. That her husband had chipped her heart away for years and she hated her life. His careless decisions leaving her nothing more than a hollow shell. There was a reason why she met a man who believed in love—to bring back into her life what she never should’ve lost. Anya promised she would leave her husband if I swept her off her feet, and I had nearly two years worth of texts to prove I did just that, if not more. If she had told me, when we first met, we could never be together because it would hurt her kids and I still went for it, this pain was well deserved—even guilty of immorality. But my heart, eyes, ears and mind were genuinely and wholly on her heart the entire time, while believing her heart, eyes, ears and mind were on my heart as well.

How could I let this love go when it was all I ever dreamt about? To share and hear all the things I did with and from her for over the last two years—just to see a picture of her with the man she told me she didn’t love—that abused her emotionally enough to be in my arms, destroyed me inside more than cancer ever could. After she told me “I don’t trust him”, “I don’t love him”, “I love you”, “I want to wear your ring”, “I want to be with you”, and “You’re my soulmate”, she allowed that picture to be seen by the world. I wish she had just put a bullet in my head; at least showing the decency to not let me suffer. If Anya saw me in a picture with the woman in my lap whose decisions led me to her, would she have trusted in my love? Would she have ever questioned my love if the roles were reversed? What did I do to deserve this picture being shown to the world? This is my reward for the loyalty and sacrifices I made? For the financial ruin I now found myself in? I deserved this after my thirty-page apology letter to her? For two years she led me to believe she couldn’t live a day without me, that she missed me more than I knew. The hardest part now was knowing how easily she could and how much she didn’t.

After telling my mother about the letter, she hit me with a very important question—what do you have to lose? Then following it up with “If you love someone, you could never stand to be away from them”. If I had nothing to lose, nothing should stand in my way other than my respect for Katie and Andrew. Maybe Anya no longer deserved my respect after posting the picture, but they certainly did. I never wanted them to know about us—there was nothing to gain by it beyond it being wrong. Although it wasn’t fair they went to bed blaming themselves for a marriage where the sole blame rested upon their parents, it was not my place to discuss it with them. As upset with Anya I was, I had no grounds nor a right to talk to their kids. Even if I knew them more than their father did, I’ve never met them—this was between the adults to figure out.

Consumed by a letter that had to be perfect, the daily eviction notices greeting me daily after work were taking a monster toll on me. As six weeks of working without pay made sure my voice mail was filled with collection calls, I ate Vicodin as if it were candy. Trying to combat the unfathomable rising stress, I reached out to Barney to discuss the article.

“Hey! Where the hell have ya been?” He greeted when picking up the phone. “I haven’t seen or heard from you in over a month!”

“I am really sorry, been extremely busy. How are you?”

“I’m great! You know, I started to do some paintings of sport figures and was planning to put together an art compilation.” he informed me excitedly.

“Very cool! How’d you come up with the idea?”

“I’m a big fan of the old Sports Illustrated cover paintings—Jim Brown was my favorite SI cover player. So, I thought I’d start painting sports figures again. It’s in good timing with the article.” He elaborated. “Speaking of which, how’s the article comin’ along? Have you spoken to Sal lately? He told me he’s called you a few times.”

Sal had called me so much it felt like a few hundred times. Hearing Barney’s heart so set on the article, it put more pressure on me to tell him where I was at with it.

“I haven’t had time to get back to him. Work has taken over my life right now.”

“Oh, I understand.” he said somewhat optimistically. “You know, I know how Sal can be sometimes—he’s relentless about art; especially passionate about my art in particular.”

“I can appreciate that.” I told him at the same time finding it ironic that Barney had left me just as many messages.

“I can’t wait to see what you come up with.” exclaimed Barney.

The great void inside now stymied anything I wanted to do for other people. I went out of my way for others and all they did was abandon me—if they weren’t posting pictures to wreck me, they were leaving me for dead. What was the real purpose for writing the article? So Barney and Sal could go out on the town, touting their accomplishments just to get laid? After receiving a barrage of calls and voice mails, that’s what it sounded like to me. Barney was the town’s treasure in my eyes and a damn good artist. He deserved all the recognition in the world for his work, but the Landyn that met him was no longer—swallowed alive by a despair as deflating as a terminal cancer diagnosis.

“At this point Barney, I’ll have to give my notes to my friend and have him reach out to you” I told him. “I don’t have the time to put the article together right now. I’m just too busy and under a lot of stress financially. If I don’t concentrate on work, I’ll be living on the streets soon. I’m very sorry, but I just can’t devote any time to the article right now.”

“You’re broke?” he asked, incredulously. “Aren’t you a CPA?”

“It’s a long story.” I sighed. “If I keep talking about it, I’ll never get past it.”

“Oh, well, I don’t want anyone other than you to write it.” He reiterated.

“I’m overwhelmed…I don’t know when I’d be able to find the time.”

“You write it when you have time.” he assured me. “I’ll be patient.”

My heart broke for Barney, knowing he felt inspired to paint sports figures again because of the attention the article could bring him. This letter put me in survival mode—my heart and mind too far away to write the article he deserved. If Barney and his sidekick hadn’t pressured me nearly daily, I might have been able to, but I couldn’t give them what they clearly wanted now. I even told him there were no guarantees, even if the article were written, it would be published in the magazine. It got me thinking how Anya must’ve felt the same way at times—why she felt it was better to walk away than keep holding on. The difference was though, I wasn’t in love—I only reluctantly agreed to write the article. Not to mention, I never asked Barney and Sal to fight for me to write the article. No, this was an apple to grape comparison.

“It won’t be for months, Barney.” I admitted. “Maybe even over a year.”

“I understand.” he sighed. “It would’ve been nice, but I appreciate how busy you are.”

“If something in my schedule changes, I’ll let you know.”

“Alright.” he said, sounding deflated before hanging up the phone.

After getting off the phone with Barney, it felt awful to let him down, but my emotions were wrecking me. His article deserved the time and attention I just couldn’t give it, too devastated over not only the loss of my relationship with Anya, but my belief in the authenticity of people and love. There was a ton more at stake than losing the only person I ever truly connected with on every level; the only person who made me feel whole and accepted by the world—the only time I ever felt special to anyone. This letter held the power to destroy my ecosystem and all I ever believed in—love. There was nothing left to construct if Anya were to prove she never loved me the way she claimed to. If she revealed that truth to me, then all I could do was disappear from her life, completely and forever. No more letters. No more CD’s. No more false hope.

Even as I struggled greatly, I still held that what we had was real and special. But, every day that passed, her silence only proved otherwise—if it was even love at all. Living that possibility day in and day out, until the picture worth a thousand tears imploded all that ever mattered. Sure, it was possible, even likely that Jackson forced her to post the picture, but Anya had left me with the reality of face value. She never texted me to warn me about it, or wrote me to tell me she was sorry but she had to do it for her kids. Her silence seemed to prove what I always feared—she loved me only because of the condition it forever remain a secret. The truth was right before me, the same one others tried desperately to make me aware of, yet staunchly refusing to believe it. Our love was so special, Anya chose to stay with a philanderer—the man who cheated on her several times. There was no convincing her that the only reason he remained loyal now was because he didn’t want to lose half of what he built. Not because of his kids or a great love he had for her. After all my sacrifices and suffering, the path I fought for her to take she completely ignored, choosing to listen to others who didn’t know the truth. People she couldn’t be honest with because of the wealth they accumulated through them. She loved me only as her confidant, and for nothing more.

It was an act of a higher power for me to give Anya a chance after all my failures with women before meeting her. I trusted her love in a situation she hid behind. Even when I doubted, I still trusted in her words that she was only there for the kids; that there was no marriage. The picture she had posted on her Facebook profile was the darkest of betrayals after being asked to fight for her. Only the Universe knew how many other pics she had proudly shown off to her friends, while I remained paralyzed at home unable to cope with the mere thought she would ever do such a thing—even after receiving a thirty-page apology letter from me. And what were those neighborhood parties like? The thought of her parading him around as the perfect husband and couple made me nauseous, especially after being told there is no marriage. Galivanting around with her hand in his as if my life didn’t even fucking matter. It made me even sicker to think all my heart had to endure when she went to Spain with him, let alone all the nights they shared the same bed. Yet, I still trusted her and believed in her love. My reward for my loyalty? A picture of her on the lap of a pig—the one she told me horrible things about to hook me. Only loving me to hide the truth that she didn’t love me.

After finishing the letter, I asked my mother what if I’m wrong about all of this? She didn’t hesitate firing back at me.

“What if you’re not?”

It made me realize her love only existed because the relationship was entirely on her terms. Whenever those terms and conditions were threatened to be altered, so did her love for me. Anya’s response to my thirty-page letter was five sentences written on pretty stationary—the cold truth about the difference in our feelings for each other. She only loved me as long as her situation at home remained intact. The kids were just a good excuse, but it was Jackson’s money affording them all a budget less lifestyle was why she ultimately stayed. Her kids were too spoiled to accept change because the only values being taught to them was the value of money. Anya was only drawn to fakes and magic, and I was too real for her to have truly loved me. I could bring the magic to her, but never the phoniness her heart needed to love me.

I wanted to be wrong about all I felt—the real reason behind writing the letter. My love for her didn’t change, it couldn’t—just my acceptance of her love for me. I had to do something to inspire the truth from her. I had to do something that would leave no doubt she loved me or not, so I could do what I needed to do. I couldn’t ask her to choose an honest life if I was never brave enough to do the same. How would I be able to inspire her to be honest with me though? What did I have to do to make sure she responded with the answers I needed from her? Would I be willing to accept the finality of it all?

Then it came to me to do the unthinkable—an unimaginable scenario until now. The only thing that would work to learn the truth and to tame the chaos inside. The last thing I wanted to do—the very thing that would destroy me forever. It was time to lay everything on the line.