Betrayal, Trust, and the Path Toward Redemption: A Personal Essay on Love, Loss, and Self-Discovery

There’s a fine line between honesty and expression when writing, how we choose to represent ourselves and others when writing creative nonfiction or personal essays, and how that might affect the people in our lives. I think about those lines often. I also think about how negative behaviors are reinforced and, when trying to develop or promote positive behaviors, people frequently feel uncomfortable about how others (those actively working to create good behaviors and habits) might interpret or think about the behaviors we—we, you, I— might regret.

When someone is concerned that you might, for whatever reason, reveal those actions and reactions that they feel guilty about, most people want to beat you to the punch, to expose your misgivings first. It’s a natural behavior, however somewhere between our conscious reasons for doing a thing and our honesty about doing it more often than not leave bridges unscathed and passable. The following is a personal essay about a relationship I had that affected me a great deal, and sometimes reading about behaviors objectively makes it easier for us to recognize similarities in our behaviors or the behaviors of people close to us.

There’s a bar on the Upper East Side in New York City, it’s called Carlow East (although my friends and I nicknamed the bar “Pats” in honor of our favorite bartender). Pats was our community center, someone from our group was always there and everyone knew that. One late afternoon, sitting at a high-top table against the back wall adjacent to the pool table, my best friend, Eugene, and I, after ordering a picture of beer, were waiting for the pool table to free up. There were two couples playing pool, guys vs. girls. Eugene and I were watching inattentively and chatting about who knows what.

Somehow, over the next few minutes, quips and suggestions were passed playfully between our high-top table and the pool table, and I was getting more and more playful with one of the two girls. Around this time, Eugene and I learned that there weren’t two couples but that the two guys were unsuccessfully hitting on the two girls via a friendly game of pool. The game ended, I can’t remember who won and who lost, anyway, the two guys left, and the girls joined us at our table. One of the girls was a brunette with dark eyes and the other was blonde with green eyes that turned grey when she was excited or happy (I would discover later). Eugene and the brunette left separately. The blonde and I talked until late into the night.

She and I exchanged contact info—cell phone #, and email addresses, and we started talking to and seeing each other frequently; it wasn’t long before we were more or less inseparable. This was a delicate situation for me, dating again, because before I moved to New York I was living in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I was unhappily married, for some years. Although my ex-wife and my marriage ended amicably, I was still working through the emotional issues that arise from a marriage with a little too much control, and I was young; at least I was younger than I believe I should have been getting married. I hadn’t processed whatever I should have been processing about my marriage and divorce. My ex-wife and I met in Idaho. We only knew each other five, maybe six months before we were married and moved to SLC, UT. It didn’t take us long to realize we barely knew ourselves enough to be married let alone one another.

The blonde from the bar was born and raised in Napa Valley, California; and she was working on her master's in journalism at NYU. We were both writers, but we had developed a deep emotional connection before that detail emerged. She and I would walk the streets of Manhattan hand-in-hand talking. When developing relationships there are hurdles that you intermittently come to, the hurdles are degrees of comfort that you sample and probe and learn to balance and accept (if you’re willing). She and I bypassed most of those hurdles and settled into feeling comfortable with each other. I opened up to her entirely completely free from judgment or concern, it felt amazing.

One of my favorite memories with her I made one afternoon while walking through Central Park together. We made our way to Central Park West across the street from the Natural History Museum and saw that something was happening on the lawn of the Museum. It was mid-November, it was chilly out but not cold, we were wearing light jackets, New York in the fall is my favorite time to be in the city. The first blankets of snow, ice skating, frozen hot chocolates for Serendipity café, Macy’s holiday windows, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We happened upon them inflating the parade floats on the lawn of the Natural History Museum and watched for a while.

The following month, December, we had been seeing each other for a while, living together but we kept our apartments and alternated where we stayed. She invited me out somewhere, I can’t remember where we went, we liked to explore new cafés, restaurants, bars, bookstores, boutiques all those uniquely NYC small businesses, and she was nervous sitting across from me—which made me nervous—she explained to me that after graduating, in ten days, she was going to have to move back home to Napa. At first, the news didn’t seem real, I was thinking something along the lines of, “Ah, OK, that’s cool. Have fun.” I was quiet as we were leaving wherever we were. The news hit me hard. Between several thoughts, I thought a lot about why I was only hearing about this now, ten days before graduation. After a few days, I suggested a long-distance relationship. She was open to the idea. So, we enjoyed her last week in New York. I had never considered a long-distance relationship, I never had, I did know that it would be hard; I also knew I was in love with her.

She and I talked a few times a week. We hadn’t seen each other for about a month, but our conversations reflected those we had when we were hand-in-hand. We texted, emailed, and spoke over the phone, and learned to work our long-distance relationship into our routines. Our relationship was working surprisingly well, for several weeks. Suddenly, I stopped hearing from her. For days and then weeks, I was not taking this new development well; I was depressed, confused, anxious, lonely, and surrounded by friends. It was rough.

Eugene, and my friend Adam Silvera, were there for me throughout and I’ve always been sincerely grateful to them for that and for being a part of my life. A few months passed and I didn’t hear from her. I was distraught and wanted to get away from anything that reminded me of her. I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Santa Fe seemed to be reaching out to me. I didn’t notice at first, but I would see advertisements about Santa Fe in subway cars, and more and more people were talking about vacations and experiences in Santa Fe. I eventually started to pay attention. I packed my belongings and flew into Albuquerque International Sunport.

Santa Fe, New Mexico, welcomed me wholeheartedly, it was amazing moving out there. Admittedly, my first week was a learning experience, transitioning from life in New York City to the quiet desert life of northern New Mexico. Once I accepted the transition everything started falling into place. I took a job managing the marketing for an art gallery on Canyon Road. I was approved for a charming casita hidden behind the intersection of San Francisco and Guadalupe Streets, four blocks from the Santa Fe plaza (downtown Santa Fe).

I had great neighbors, painters, sculptors, and writers, all welcomed me, one of them, the painter, introduced me to her friends. Although I was struggling with betrayal, loss, and other emotional upheavals, I was beginning to feel peaceful. Santa Fe, New Mexico has a way of welcoming those who need it most, I heard stories of how and why people found Santa Fe similar to mine. I bought a bike and rode my bike through downtown Santa Fe every day to get to work and rode to a café or bar in the downtown area to write after work and on my days off.

On one of my days off, I was sitting at Aztec Café, one of my favorites, I was writing when I got a phone call. I answered without checking the caller ID. It was her; she asked me where I was and, taken aback, I said “Aztec Café in Santa Fe, New Mexico.”  She asked me how I was, I told her I was doing alright but considering the obvious I wasn’t exactly pleased to hear from her. I was still shaken for several minutes after our conversation ended, but that was nothing compared to how I felt when only a few short minutes later I noticed a blurry, peripheral outline of a person standing next to my table. I looked up and she was standing there.

The next few days were filled with ambiguous feelings and conversations, expressions, explanations, and appeals for forgiveness, and I was given quite a few Chai’s (my then favorite drink). There was eventually forgiveness and she and I started seeing each other again. She moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was offered an internship with Outside Magazine, based in Santa Fe. Our relationship went back to being similar to the way it was when we last saw each other, except for one little detail. There was a tight knot at the pit of my stomach, something did not seem right.

Several weeks into our newly developed life together we were at her place, a casita off Galisteo Street. We were watching Across the Universe. I suddenly had this strong, pitfall feeling that seemed to be increasing. I started thinking about when she disappeared after she left New York and before we reconnected in Santa Fe. I asked her about it, and she said she was backpacking with a friend through Europe. After stopping in England, she dropped off the grid.

I remember her telling me that her ex-boyfriend was in Oxford and attending university there. I asked her if they reconnected and timidly, she said yes. Her body language was intriguing so, following the feeling in my stomach, I asked her if they started seeing each other again, and timidly, she said yes. “Are you seeing each other now?” she responded, “I want to be with you.” I thought that was an odd way to say that, so I asked, “Does he think that the two of you are together now?” She said, “Yes.” Without saying anything I stood and walked out.

The next morning as I was leaving my casita she was waiting for me, with a Chai. She talked, apologized, explained, and I sipped on my Chai. She said she ended things with him and wanted to be with me. I wanted to believe her, at first, I didn’t. But because I wanted to two- or three days later we talked about everything and picked up where we left off, again. Our relationship after that was surprisingly good. We were doing well. We explored Santa Fe and northern New Mexico together, ate amazing foods, went to local shows and events, danced to Americana music, microbrewery hopped, and hiked and camped anywhere and whenever the opportunity was presented. She loved writing for Outside Magazine. She and I were happy with our lives independent of each other and together. And then I started getting another strong, pitfall feeling in my stomach.

She started acting strangely. I asked her a couple of times and she said there was nothing, so I tried to let it go. I’m an empathic person. I tend to pick up on small things: micro-expressions, tone, diction, vibes, and body language, and something was definitely out of place with her. I wanted to trust her so instead I started doubting myself. Until she started blowing me off weekend after weekend and when the feeling didn’t go away, I asked her about it again a few weeks later and her response this time was defensive. She encouraged me to doubt my instincts and told me I was being paranoid. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and convinced myself that she was trustworthy and that I was being unnecessarily anxious.

One night, two weeks later, she and I were supposed to meet at my place, and she never showed up. My texts and calls went unanswered. The next morning, she said she was hanging out with the other interns, so I suggested we spend that evening together, she said she had already made plans. I ignored my intuition. Shortly after that, we met at the Pantry for breakfast, and she was way off when I asked her if she wanted to talk about anything she got so defensive it was alarming. I had never seen her behave that way before. We had plans to meet the following night she blew me off, ignoring my calls and texts.

With the strong, pitfall feeling now overwhelming me, I rode my bike to her house; the light from a lamp was on, and I could see the glare of it through the window as I walked up. I knocked and there was no answer. I waited a few minutes and tapped on the window, and when there was no response, I rode home. The next morning, I walked back to her house. This time let myself inside; I walked in on her in bed with one of the other interns. I walked back outside, beckoning her to follow me. She and I stood outside her front door, the gravel was uncomfortable under my covered feet, and I remember thinking how unpleasant it must be for her bare feet, she was wearing a shirt, and draped in a blanket.

“I am so sorry. This isn’t…I love you; I want to be with you.” She said to me, and I’m standing there thinking about, well, everything since the moment she told me she was moving back to Napa those months ago; the manipulation, the deceit, the lies, and worse of all she had encouraged me to question myself, and my intuition, and now standing in front of me she was telling me how she loves me as some guy waited for her, naked in her bed. I turned around and walked away; I never saw her walk back inside. I never saw her again. As I walked away, I took a deep breath and felt like a heavy burden had been lifted. I felt weightless, I felt amazing. I knew I wouldn’t go home; I didn’t know where I was going. I ended up at Kakawa Chocolate House. Kakawa wasn’t far from her place. While I was walking, I reached out to her ex-boyfriend at Oxford. We talked for several minutes. Our conversation was illuminating.

As it turns out, not only had she not ended things with him when she said he would after that night our conversation interrupted Across the Universe, but the pair had never ended things. They had been together the entire time. They were together when she and I met at the bar in New York City, they were together throughout the relationship she and I had in New York. They were together when she approached me at Aztec Café and throughout the relationship she and I had in Santa Fe. They were together when I walked in on her in bed with one of her colleagues. And yes, you bet I told him about it, and me.

I called Adam Silvera after speaking with her boyfriend and we talked for a long time, he had always been a good friend and I needed that connection with something real, a reminder of an anchor I haven’t found in many people since. Not long after, I met a woman at Aztec Café who made this story sound like a lullaby.

I was sitting at Aztec Café, the same table I was sitting at when she walked back into my life. I had my laptop open in front of me. I was staring at a blank white background, thoughtless. The afternoon clouds were beginning to roll in, it was monsoon season in northern New Mexico. The faint aroma of rain was becoming noticeable, or perhaps I was imagining it. Samayya was sitting alone at a table against the wall, she asked a question earlier about the internet, and whether it was working for me. “I’m not sure…” I said, “I’m not using it.” I started to walk out, I was going to sit outside and wait for the rain, I stepped back into the room after leaving, and asked her, “Would you like to watch the rain with me?” And she said, “Yes.” But that’s a different story.