What an Awkward Conversation That Will Be

Story Submitted by Justin:

I'd been dating Evelyn for close to half a year when she sat me down on my couch and confessed that she had been cheating on me.  I was so hurt that I asked her to leave, and she did.

That might have been the end of the story, but she wrote me an e-mail later that day, a very long one, in which she apologized in about a hundred different ways and told me how great I was in about hundred more.  It was the most self-deprecating thing that I've ever read, but it didn't move me.  If she had really cared about me that much in the first place, she wouldn't have cheated, right?

I woke up the following morning to two more e-mails from her, and I wrote back with: "Please stop writing me.  I'll be in touch."  I just needed some time to work things out.

She did stop writing.  But then she started texting.  The first one, "I'm sorry," I ignored.  The dozens that followed it were harder to ignore.  I texted, "No more texts.  They're not helping."

I was about to text her "No phone calls, either," when she called.

I picked up, told her to stop contacting me, and hung up.  She called again and said, "I have to apologize again, face-to-face."

"You've apologized enough.  Let me be for now."

She didn't like that, but I eventually convinced her and we hung up.  That night, my friend, Joseph, called.

"Dude," he said, "You don't have to forgive me, but you really ought to forgive Evelyn.  She loves you."

I hadn't told him about our break up.  And why would Joseph need forgiving?  Unless...

"She cheated on me with you?" I asked.

Silence from Joseph's end of the phone.  Then, "Shit, dude.  I thought she told you.  Um..."

My heart beat the loudest I'd ever heard it beat.  I didn't hear anything else that Joseph blabbered on about and I hung up on him.

Evelyn tried me over and over again for what felt like months.

Last I heard, she and Joseph are married with kids.  They live far away from me, and that's just fine.  I wonder what they'll tell their children when they're asked how they met.