Chapter 56: The Big Lie

my head is a cannonball

POUND POUND POUND

a thousand miniature determined railroad workers simultaneously hammer spikes into my skull. Overachievers.

where am I? what time is it?

my ears are the first to come back online

A shower is running, drops hitting tile like thunder in my blighted head. Eyes next. I barely manage to hoist the hundred pound sandbags that are my eyelids. White ceiling, unfamiliar covers, remarkably soft pillows. Can I take these home?

Hotel room!

Crushdude. I was out with Crushdude. Hot guy, dinner, delightful, flirty conversation, catching up on all things since sixth grade…

Mostly blank after the brimming glass of wine. A bit here, a piece there.

I panic. I have to work today. What time is it? I have to find my phone…where the hell is my phone?! I fail at locating mine, though Crushdude’s lies face down on the hotel room desk. I pick it up and look at the screen.

Still early. Thank God.

Glowing beneath the time, damning letters glare up at me. A missed message notification from a woman… her first name, LITERALLY THE WORD SOULMATE, followed by his last name.

This fucker is married.

Not just married, he is cheating on his SOULMATE.

The chorus of overenthusiastic railroad workers pounding away at my head is joined by a symphony of pipefitters overfilling my stomach with something rancid.

I feel so stupid. How in the exact hell had I not figured this out?? We have been talking for months. I bumble around the room, locating clothing, hey, look! A phone… I’m a drunken one-legged sailor in a futile search for the elusive treasure of everything that belongs to me. He emerges from the shower, all clean sweetness and cuddles. I am feeling decidedly un-cuddly. I coolly request he take me home immediately, and barely say anything on the way. My brain is still a bowl of mashed potatoes with too much gravy. Neurons are attempting to swim across but are stuck drowning in starchy muck. They send out a desperate SOS. I need coffee like a junkie waiting impatiently at the door of the methadone clinic. At my apartment, I stumble as best as I can out of the car and slam the door. I would love to say I ran up the stairs, but I more dragged my leaden ass skywards, hands pulling on railings, wondering how in the hell I was going to be capable of anything at all. I get a frantic message from Crushdude, “what’s wrong?” to which I respond flatly “you’re married” to which he responds “I’m sorry” which really isn’t enough. Not enough at all.

My mind reels.

I collapse on my couch at home contemplating my apparent bout of amnesia. Doesn’t amnesia only happen in soap operas? If so, which one am I in? Cuz I can’t remember, ha ha. Was I drugged? I recall the strange smirk that weird bartender gave me as he slid the overfull glass across the bar. Did he slip me something? Did Crushdude? Someone else? Did I drink so much I can’t remember? That’s not normal for me at all… my brain swims in a murky dead sea of self doubt and did-this-really-just-happen paralysis. I call and confront him. What the hell, Crushdude, did you ruphy me? He is shocked, and extremely disappointed I don’t remember anything. Apparently the night was very meaningful for him, in spite of me not being his Soulmate, and he thought it was spectacular for me as well. He said during my fated last glass of wine, I ran off to the bathroom and was in there an eternity, or at least long enough that he was getting worried. So was it someone else in the bar? Or in the bathroom? Was I reading War and Peace? And who the hell ever pours wine up to the rim, anyway?

I know, I know. You’re supposed to tell someone where you’re going, have someone call up and check on you on a first date, complete with some bogus emergency to excuse you out of Bad Dateville. But I had known Crushdude since I was a kid, so I didn’t tell anyone, and something sketchy happened that night, but I have no idea exactly what, and no way to prove it.

Dating is turning out to be the most buyer-beware situation I’ve ever encountered.

I stalk out Crushdude’s Facebook, wondering how in the hell I could have missed the fact that he’s married. Oh, okay. It’s not that obvious, you have to scroll through a sidebar to see his relationships, but by golly, she sure is there. I had never looked because just as with Cheaterdude, I assume if you are hitting on me, You. Are. Single. but… I. Am. Wrong.

I’m in the Wild Wild West and anything goes, but I lack a gun, sunscreen, and know-how.

I look at the pictures on his page. Crushdude skiing. Crushdude hamming it up with friends in Aspen. Crushdude posing with a surfboard on a paradise evoking beach. He looks single and ready to mingle, hot singles near you! I return to the sidebar and click on his wife’s name.

Oh no.

Oh, no, no, NO!

I was hoping to see similarly isolated pictures, evidence that they were splitting up, at least thinking about getting divorced, but her profile picture is of their WEDDING. My stomach is in my throat as I look at picture after picture on her wall of the two of them together in a wide variety of activities. This woman really, really loves him. I feel sick.

Do I call her? Do I tear down her entire world? Ruin this woman’s life?

I am running a volleyball game in my head SMACK you have to tell her SMACK you can’t it will destroy her world SMACK it’s your responsiblility SMACK she’s never going to believe you MISS how can he have put me in this position??! and the ball goes bouncing away and vanishes. There are no possible winners in the game today, thank you for playing, folks.

In my frantic could-I-have-figured-this-out recap, I unearth a few red flags I was apparently too colorblind to identify. Didn’t he invariably contact me during business hours, 8 to 5, Monday through Friday? I did find this a bit strange. I retrace my steps and dammit, YES that’s exactly the case. He was always calling and messaging me from work, where his wife wouldn’t catch him, where the eyes of his Soulmate wouldn’t be able to incite some well-deserved guilt.

I evilly consider sending him masses of incriminating messages during dinnertime, just to make him sweat it out. Phone calls coming in while she’s placing the meatloaf on the table. Damning evidence during the time of day he is most likely to be busted by his wife.

Red flags. He never invited me to see him…only wanted to meet at a third-party location…no selfies when we’re out…I really need to get better at this.

Even after this experience, I am sandbagged by married men. A music pal of mine starts working on some things with me, expresses interest, kisses me one night on my deck underneath the moonlight, then confesses he doesn’t love his wife anymore. Wife? You never mentioned a wife, isn’t it a bit late once you’ve already kissed a girl? Another music pal takes me out twice before I discover he already has a girlfriend.

I start believing I must be the only person left who doesn’t think this is okay, who likes that good old fashioned one guy, one woman construct. I’m the Omega Man of the monogamous relationship. Anyone out there still believe in this? Hellooooo???

I consider the lack of faithfulness as I drive back to Tiny Town to visit my few faithful friends in that community, when my pals from my church days decide Monica needs to go out dancing in this town where almost everyone knows what happened at church.

What could possibly go wrong?