Coming Clean, Take Two

I might as well just get this typed out before I lose my nerve and decide for the millionth time that no, this isn’t really how I feel, but then turn back and admit to myself a second later that I’m just fooling myself.

A big part of me is still in love with Mike.

Or if not in love, then has very strong feelings for, at least.

God . . .  I don’t know what to do.  And I haven’t said that and meant it for years!

No, for all who are curious, I haven’t told this to anyone else, and I especially haven’t told Rob.  I can’t hurt him like this and honestly, there’s nothing I can do about these feelings.  I just have to attempt to expel them from my head, because Mike and I aren’t even friends right now, let alone anything else, and I doubt we can ever be anything else, considering he’s with that petty, lying, cheating, narcissistic bitch, and I’m with Rob.  I wouldn’t hurt Rob for the world, but . . .

It’s as if . . . When I think about Mike, it’;s strange, but I still feel somehow . . . connected to him.  Like there’s a fine silver cord still attaching us to one another.  I know that probably sounds crazy, but somehow, I can’t help wondering if he’s the one I’m supposed to be with.

I admit, I feel cheated out of a real relationship with him.  I was cheated out of a real relationship with him.  I was his thgerapist more than his girlfriend, ever since his senior year.  And I’m jealous as all Hell that the lessons we learned, we had to learn at the expense of one another and to the advantage that Jill has at actually being able to be his damned girlfriend.

Yet on the same token, I can’t deny the good I’ve done Rob, being his friend and girlfriend and fiance.  God.  Fiance.  And I find myself wondering if there’s any possibility in the spectrum of human possibilities to be with an ex that a month ago, I swore I hated and never wanted to speak to again.

I’m horrible, aren’t I?  Horrible and horribly confused.  And I can’t tell either one of them anything.  Rob, because I’m not willing to hurt him this way.  Because he would let me go.  He’d tell me to go find out what I really wanted.  Who I really wanted.  He would step aside and let me find out.  But he wouldn’t be unhurt in the process.

I can’t tell Mike because we’re not even entirely on speaking terms.  He told me to give him time when we talked on the phone, and that’s what I intend to do.  But my mind . . . My mind and fantasies can’t help running me ragged with imaginings of me and Rob, back in New Jersey and me at Union Beach, late at night when I hear someone behind me.  And it’s Mike.  We start talking about mundane stuff and somehow it gets around to him saying that he and Jill have broken up.  But that’s as far as my mind lets me go.  Any further and I know it would be too dangerous to put any thought to.

I miss him.  I miss the good times.  And I know, people will tell me that it’s natural to miss the good times had with one’s ex, and that talking to him was what stirred up all these emotions, and that that’s normal.  I know all that, but it does me no good.  I shouldn’t want to get back together with him!  I shouldn’t be wishing that this country allowed polygamy so this problem wouldn’t be a problem!  I shouldn’t be this close to knowing that if I had the chance, I might actually cheat on Rob!  If I was reduced to that, I truly would have committed an unforgivable act.

This is what I’ve been suffering in silence with since I called Mike.  As I said, a simple question, whose answers boggle the imagination:

What happens when the one you think you love and the one you want to be with aren’t the saem person?

My hands are truly tied and in knots I myself initiated.  I refuse to hurt Rob like this.  And I already know Mike would never take me back.  And even if he would consider it, he’d have to break up with Jill before anything could happen, unless they agreed on a whole casual dating set up, and somehow I’m not seeing that happening.

Yeah.  So this is why I’ve been a mental mess.  Rob’s asked me a couple of times if I was okay, but he always accepts my answer when I put a smile on my face and say yeah, that I’m fine.

I don’t want to know what would happen if he had the mental acuity and insightfulness to probe deeper . . .