Part 4
We stayed together for about 3 or 4 months, I can’t remember exactly how long, with no major problems. It was painful to be sure, being separated from the person you love, trying to maintain a relationship though a crappy phone line that constantly disconnects, internet that fails, and snail mail that is unreliable and slow. But we made do. And despite the problems, I thought we’d found a good coasting speed. We could talk with each other face to face on web cams when the internet was working well enough. And though we were both trying to live our lives, we were making time for each other. But unbeknownst to me trouble was brewing.
I didn’t want to see it, and so continued to believe that things were fine. But there were signs a less consumed person might have seen. Though we had always had out little arguments. They usually ended pretty quick, and I though they usually made us stronger as a couple, at one point she told me about these doubts she was having, she told me it felt like I was drifting away from her. I reassured her as best as I could that I loved her as much as ever, and that I could never imagine my life with out her. It alleviated the situation in my eyes, but I didn’t see that it had simply made her not want to talk about it any more, because it wasn’t that she felt I was drifting away from her, it was in fact that she felt herself drifting away from me.
Around this time she told me about a new friend she’d made online. This was nothing new, Rye was constantly making new friends on her various networking sites. She was the type of person to have 500 friends that she didn’t know that well, but she had a fair bit that she actually knew very well. She would generally tell me about all the ones she was close with at all. So When she started telling me about this new friend of hers I wasn’t surprised. But from her words I felt an instant and deep loathing for him. I knew in an instant that he was flirting with her, and I chalked it up to naiveté that she didn’t see it. She told him about me and she told me how he had discounted me, told her he was better than me. I hated him, though it didn’t get me very angry. I had no reason to be afraid, I trusted Rye with every fiber of my being. I trusted her with my whole life. I knew she would never cheat on me. Besides she was in China, and this guy was from Australia. It really wasn’t an issue at all.
A bit later another of Rye’s friends came to visit her in China. A British girl named Jo. Rye was constantly making friends with people from all over the world. She was an amazing person who had a gift for friendship. She had literally hundreds of friends all over, which is why I had always felt so lucky that of all the people she knew in her life, she had chosen me as her life partner.
I understood lately that Rye had been lonely. Most of her close friends lived far away now, going to schools in other parts of China or studying abroad in other places. So I was really happy when Jo came to China. I was happy that Rye had someone to be with, and though it meant Rye spent less time online I knew it was only temporary and I was much more happy that Rye was spending time with a friend than just sitting around talking to me all the time. Besides this, after me and Rye decided to make this long distance thing work, she had also recommitted herself to the au pair America program. She was going to try for another family, this time in New York. In our eyes New York seemed infinitely closer than she was now, we were idealistic and believed that I would be able to go visit her, and hopefully she could come live with me afterwards for a few months before returning to China. But it was a stressful process still, which further made me glad she could go out with Jo and go to clubs had have fun and forget about it for the most part.
Pain, worry, confusion. After Jo had been there about a week I was talking with Rye online, and out of the blue she told me that the boy from Australia, the one and only friend that she had out of the thousands that I actually had a problem with, was coming to China to visit her, in fact he would be there the next day, she said she didn’t know why she hadn’t told me this. I was confused, because she had never been purposely dishonest with me before, but confusion is really where it stopped. In the same conversation she asked me if I thought she should not go hangout with him, and I responded “I trust you” because I truly did. I was worried of course, but I was more worried that he was going to try and pull something. That he might hurt her, or attack her or something. I never in my wildest dreams thought that she would ever cheat on me at all. I couldn’t imagine that.
I can’t remember if I talked with her after that. I think I’m sure I must have, in addition to chatting online, we were also sending e-mails so I can’t remember if I ever talked with her in real time. But just about that time was her Visa interview for her American visa. We were both sure it would go through, though I can’t remember why. But just at that time I got an e-mail from her saying that she had been turned down for her visa again. I was so sad. And above all I know she felt that she had let me down, because she wanted it, but she knew how much I wanted it too. This is when I lost contact with her.
For 4 days, I didn’t talk with her, I was online every day, I tried calling her, tried messaging her, and e-mails. But I didn’t hear anything. I started getting depressed, started getting terrified. Though maybe she had been kidnapped, been raped by that son of a bitch. I was so scared of what might be going on on the other side of the world. But finally after 4 days, I was on the computer and she came online. And I was so relived. I asked where she’d been and why I hadn’t been able to get in contact with her and she told me she’d just been going out to clubs with Jo, and that guy and one of her Chinese friends. I pushed a little asking why she hadn’t been able to even send me an e-mail or anything, and that was apparently all the pushing she needed to tell me, suddenly out of the blue, that she had kissed him, kissed that Australian fuck!
I fell out of my chair. My heart beating so hard I thought it would explode and send chunks of my flesh and bones splattering against the walls. I punched the cement ground of my basement 3 times, hard, as my hard started to swell up I started shouting through my key board. Not sentences, just WHAT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN? YOU KISSED HIM? RYE, RYE, ARE YOU THERE? HELLO? WHY AREN”T YOU TALKING TO ME? She didn’t respond for a while. And I couldn’t stand it. How dare she not respond how dare she say that and just leave it. I can’t explain what I was feeling at the time. I felt like I shouldn’t. every part of me felt like it needed to be doing something other that what it was. I felt like I imagine a slug must when it‘s covered in salt, so much pain it will crawl out of it’s own skin. I wanted to crawl out of my own skin at that moment. I was in so much pain. I couldn’t stand it. Finally she told me, she said she had kissed him in a club, the were drinking a bit, and that they had been holding hands, which frankly made it hurt so much worse. If they had simply been making out it wouldn’t have hurt so bad, I could understand drunken making out. To know they had been holding hands on the street, they were having a real relationship. Sex would have been better than that.
I didn’t cry, I couldn’t, in fact I wouldn’t cry for the next 4 months or so. I didn’t eat anything for the next 3 days, because everything in my body was trying to evacuate as fast as possible. If I ate anything it would fly through my system and out the other end in an hour. I didn’t sleep for 3 days either. I spent all my time online trying to talk with her. Calling her on the phone, sending her text messages. I started making demands, told her she couldn’t see him any more, she agreed, told her she couldn’t go out with friends anymore, she agreed. Told her she needed to commit to staying around and talking with me at least every day so we could work this out, she agreed. In fact anything I said she agreed with instantly, but in practice she didn’t agree to any of it.
At this point I’d gone so far off the deep end, I was trying to control her in every possible way, I was trying to make her do exactly what I wanted, and I couldn’t think of anything but her all the time. She didn’t stop going out to clubs, I’d call her regularly, and if I even got through she usually wouldn’t pick up, and if she did, there was loud music in the back ground. I would yell at her. Scream at her. Tell her how I was trying to hold everything together, why wasn’t she helping me, why didn’t she want to fix this? Why wouldn’t she talk with me, I told her I was dieing, told her I couldn’t stand to do anything in my life now, told her how much pain I was in. Why was she making me do all the work. Why couldn’t she meet me half way?
At one point a few weeks later, she left on a ski trip with Jo, and her Chinese friend. I called her while she was there. She was with her friends when she picked up and I could hear them in the background. And I heard a distinct male voice. I asked who it was she told me it was a friend of the other Chinese girl. That he was from Ireland. I didn’t question it, I couldn’t stand to question it. But in fact I would find out later that that was in fact him again, that Australian ass hole. She was on a 3 day trip with him in the mountains.
Of course I can’t remember all the things that were said. It took about 3 months I think, though I could be wrong about that, 3 months of me desperately trying to hold things together. And in this time I came up with the following plan. Since Rye had failed to get a visa to the US she was going to Holland to go to school. She would be there for 3 years. I was willing to do anything in the world to hold us together, and I could see that we couldn’t maintain a relationship while being so far apart. So I decided I would move to Holland. I would get a job, and work till I had a bit of money, then go to Holland and live there. I would sleep in the streets if I had to, though I was looking for programs in which I could get a place to live and food in exchange for work. I was ready to spend my days in any manner of pain and suffering if it meant I would be with her. I would die for her. I knew it. Even if she was now telling me she didn’t know if she wanted to be with me. Even though she told me that her love had faded. Even as I heard her voice telling me she didn’t love me anymore. I would give everything I had to this.
I took a job painting my house, getting paid by my parents. Then took a job at a summer camp I’d worked at before. With a plan things were looking up. But the conversations online and on the phone continued. And by the end of 3 months I was beginning to see something. Though that guy had gone back to Australia, she told me she was still talking to him regularly even though she said she wouldn’t. she told me she didn’t think that kissing him was just a mistake, she said a lot of things, and when I asked if she loved him she said “I don’t know”
Among the things I said: I hate you, you’re killing me, you are a terrible person, how can you do this to me, bitch, slut, fuck you, go to hell, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.
Me: “how can you do this, don’t you see how this is killing me, you are killing me!!”
Her: “well what do you want me to do?”
Me: “I want you to die, I want you to just go in a small room and kill yourself”
Her: long pause “that’s not your choice.”
She took a lot of abuse from me, a lot of days of me simply screaming, me yelling maybe she felt that she had to take it, maybe she felt that she deserved it. But she almost always stayed calm through it. She would cry, she would listen quietly, and sometimes she would yell back, but rarely. She mostly just stood it. I hated how she could be so calm, it was unfair that she could do something like that to make me love her more, while I hated her so much.
I sometimes wondered, if she had just died, If she had been killed by someone or something, would it have hurt as bad? I thought if she had died, at least I would always know that she had loved me. I wondered how many people who had really found complete true love, love that had grown and matured, love that had been shared love. How many people had heard the person they loved turn around in an instant and tell them they didn’t love them anymore.
I realized after that 3 month period that I had failed. I realized that our relationship was doomed, and it was time to simply break up. Finally I told her, I wouldn’t come to Holland to see her. I hoped we could be friends, but I needed some time alone to not think about her for a while, so I wouldn’t be talking with her online for a month or two.
But once again bad luck would intervene, because soon, the earthquake would break our silence.
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