“Where it hurts most? That would be realizing that the woman I loved, the one I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with, sees me as a fool. A joke.
A piggy bank, apparently.”
She froze mid-slice, her brow furrowing.
“What are you talking about, Mark?”
I hesitated, but once I started, it all came tumbling out. Seeing Jess at the pawn shop. The lies about being in financial trouble.
The messages on her phone, how she bragged to her friends about selling her ring to fund a vacation, and laughing at how gullible I was.
By the time I finished, my hands were trembling. I set the mug down before I spilled tea everywhere.
“She said it was my fault, Mom,” I said. “She told me that I was selfish and irresponsible, that I was ruining her life.
And for a moment, I believed her. I stood there, in that damn pawn shop, thinking maybe I’d let her down somehow. Maybe I just wasn’t enough…”
“Oh, honey,” my mother said.
“I can’t stop replaying it in my head,” I admitted.
“The way she looked at me like I was the villain. And all the while, she was laughing behind my back. She made me question everything.
My worth. My instincts. My whole sense of reality.”
My mom reached across the table and put her hand over mine.
Her touch was warm, grounding me.
“Mark, listen to me. This isn’t about you. This is about her.
Her choices. Her lies… those are her failures. Not yours.”
Talking to my mother made me feel somewhat better.
But I didn’t know how to move on. I felt as though trust was going to be a difficult thing to come by now.
“I’m not sure what my next move is yet,” I said quietly. “But I do know that Jess needs to remain in the past.”
What would you have done?
Source: amomama
