She was soft-spoken, fair-skinned and dainty – the opposite of my boisterous and energetic personality. And while she always had the girl-next-door look, I was usually in my favourite pair of comfy jeans and a tank top, hair tied up in a high ponytail.
She was the girl that became his “new” girlfriend. And for some reason, it bothered me.
Our break-up was ugly. He cheated and I cried myself to sleep at night. We spent hours screaming at each other on the phone, which lasted for months on end. They usually ended with “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you” but after so much pain, enough was enough, and the last phone call ended with “I never want to see you again” and “Fine”.
Just that, it wasn’t fine because I still had to see him. We went to the same church together and now we were stuck in the same college. Different classes but in the same vicinity nonetheless. Even after the break-up, I was not okay. In fact, I wasn’t ‘okay’ for months after that. While I grieved a relationship that had ended (considering that it was toxic, it was surprising I was THAT upset), he went around parading in all his glorious “freedom” – flirting with a string of girls. Until he met her.
Up till today, I don’t know what she saw in him. Maybe I’m being bias because people can change, and very often, people do change but I wasn’t convinced.
It felt unfair – that he found new love, while I, the “victim” was all alone.
“How did the conniving, little cheater end up with someone good?”
After the nightmare of my first relationship, I fell in love again or so I thought.
One ex-boyfriend and two failed “what-do-you-even-call-it” type of relationships after, there was a constant with each of them. Every single one of those boys had another girl – whether she was the one they thought they could have or whether she was the one they wished they did have.
The other girl was always the soft-spoken, fair-skinned and dainty girl. And I was none of that. The most complex description that they have all given me is that she was “mysterious”.
Let’s just say that I’ve been unlucky in love. Or maybe I wasn’t “mysterious” enough because I’m a straightforward, I-know-what-I-want kind of girl. Sorry for not sitting in the corner of the library looking all “mysterious” and making you wonder what goes through my intellectual mind.
Anyway, none of them got what they wanted for long.
I guess I’ll never truly understand what they meant by being happier with “the other girl”. But that’s okay because after all the fiasco, I am now, finally, okay.
And I suppose that after all of this, I am the lucky one because I didn’t have to deal with their messes. I count my blessings and consider myself to be the girl who got away (or in simpler terms, I escaped).
x
