Third Time's the Charm

When Facebook arrived it brought so much potential and hope of joyous reunions. My ex-boyfriend from Hawai’i was one of them. And one of the few that got away. At just over thirty years old at the time, the force of “shoulda, couldas” and “what ifs” on the human heart was strong.

He told me that a few years after we broke up he’d gotten married and had two kids. Unfortunately, like many Navy marriages, it ended in divorce. We filled each other in on all we’d missed.

We videoed all the time. He lured me back in with his Brooklyn swagger and playful flirtations. He made overtures and we sexted with each other. I even planned to visit him when I came back home to New York when my Father held his annual Halloween party.

Vincent picked me up at the airport when I flew into JFK from California and I introduced him to my dad. I texted Vincent all the next day and was excited to see him and thrilled my Dad said he could spend the night.

I had the best time with my Uncle Billy, and Aunts Linda & Lorie dancing and laughing in my Sookie Stackhouse costume. I had a cute blonde wig, a tight Merlotte’s shirt and black booty shorts.

Throughout the night I texted Vincent and he kept telling me how busy it was at work but that he was coming. He was an NYPD Detective now and I understood how hectic that must be to try and make plans. Eleven became midnight, midnight became one, and the party gradually slowed and most guests had left by three. Around 4AM I was still expecting him to come over regardless of the time. I hadn’t heard from him since three and I sent him one last picture of myself. This time I had disrobed from my costume to reveal a fringy halter top and matching panties that traced the curves of my hips as if I were Fay Raye.

Soon thereafter, I received a text asking “why are you texting my boyfriend pictures of yourself?” My jaw hit the floor and hot tingles burned up from my neck to my cheeks. Instead of coming to spend the night with me, he had crashed at his (ex)girlfriend’s house. It also turned out he had been seeing her the entire time that we’d been talking again.

Why had he lied? Why hadn’t he just been honest about seeing someone? So many thoughts banged around my head. He had definitely told me she was an ex. I couldn’t believe I’d let him hurt me again.

My mind started to divide by zero, as I tried to play it over and over in my head. I even told my Dad and his girlfriend what had happened. Almost without missing a beat, my Father chastised me and said “You’re always doing that - forcing men into relationships they don’t want to be in.”

At that, I realized the painful truth of his words.

You’re right - including you. That’s when a different level of my heart broke. My father, who’d been absentee most of my life, had just blamed me not only for a man I love betraying me again, but also for every other failed relationship up to this point. Whether he subconsciously knew that he was included in that list of men, I can only assume.

I wrote Vincent a strongly-worded multi-page letter, just like I did last time, in Hawai’i when he left me for Rachel. I still snarl involuntarily when I hear or think of that name. Writing allows me to get most of what I have to say out while attempting to persuade the individual to come back to me, apologize to me or realize that they’ve made a grave mistake and that I am the one they want to be with instead.

The first time was when he lied about sleeping with other women while he was on deployment about six months after we started going out. He even told me he probably would ahead of time, so it wasn’t that he did it. It was that he lied and said he hadn’t and threw that in my face when I told him about my escapades. The escapades he told me to have, knowing that I was a sex and love addict long before either of us knew what that was or that I am one. In fact, his nickname for me was Sex Machine.

Despite him telling me I should have sex with others while he was on deployment, I held my horniness at bay for as long as I could, but three weeks before Vincent came home I caved. I’d gone to several parties that my Navy friends had thrown and met a gentleman and his friend. Lo and behold, Vincent would be happy that I found companionship in his absence. Or so I thought. However, when he came home and I was honest with him about my extra-curricular activities, he flipped out.

He broke up with me and made me feel like a whore. Except he didn’t because he said “whores were smart enough to charge for it” after wrapping his hand around my throat - not in a sexy way - and chucking a glass bottle across the room into the bathroom which exploded all over the room.

Then he said he didn’t sleep with anyone at all. However, our shipmates told me otherwise. I was told he even slept with a lady boy, a fact that while I wouldn’t judge, it is probably information he’d rather not be known as it might interfere with his conservative political campaign.

I was devastated by the breakup, which was made even worse by his courting another girl, Rachel. It would be another ten years before I talked to him again.

Rejected and embarrassed Halloween night, I thought I was done. Done with the heartache and done being blamed for the actions of badly behaving men. My father was so mad at my decision to be taken back to the airport early that he wouldn’t even get out of the SUV to hug me goodbye.

I said “I hope I don’t get in a plane crash and you’ll have not hugged me goodbye.” It didn’t matter to him - he wouldn’t even look me in the eye through the driver’s side window - and I walked away. I stopped talking to my father and I stopped talking to Vincent - maybe I was learning. A few years later, my father pulled his head out of his ass and apologized for his nonsense. It would be another few years before Vincent, yet again, apologized and lured me to the door I readily walked through to be with him. Maybe I wasn’t actually learning at all. To some of us, obsession looks a lot like love.

Some time passed and I pseudo-stalked him on Facebook for the first time in years, wondering how he was doing. That’s when I saw the post for a gender reveal - of a second child born to Vincent and his new wife - the girl he cheated on with me. The girl he cheated on his wife with. The same girl, in fact, that he had lied about being broken up with years prior.

He was married, with two children, yet again. Why had he married her? He had said to me once that having been divorced already and loving two kids was as happy as he needed to be, that he didn’t need another wife, or anything serious. I was upset, but I let it go as people change and years had gone by since the last betrayal.

A couple years later still and he talked of being in an open relationship and yet again we started talking as though there was some future to be had between the two of us. He even went so far as to say she’d probably let him have a girlfriend.

He told me the two of them had previously tried with one of their coworkers and the relationship ran its course. I started to get excited about the potential of being with him again and the titillating idea of being in a throuple.

It wasn’t until 2024 that we tried to make it all come together. Vincent and his wife were having an online acquaintance visit from England. Vincent suggested I come the same week and that me, he and his wife would find some time to get together. When I got there he even suggesting that the four of us get drunk and have a good time all together. I kept an open mind but was less into the idea of having a fourth than he was - this isn’t exactly a round of golf.

That first night we drank enough tequila to cause a drought in Mexico and before I knew it, I was getting the royal tour from Vincent. In the basement showing me books and tchotchkes on the shelf, he turned to me and said “kiss me.” I did and the next thing I remember is being back upstairs in the living room bent over the couch and Vincent trying to have sex with me from behind. It wasn’t working too well, because, tequila. As per usual though when thwarted, I twirled around and dropped to my knees to accomplish my task.

The next day I drove Vincent and Chad to Montauk Lighthouse and flirted the entire way. The day after that, we took the train into New York City to the museum. I kept peppering innuendo towards Vincent and texted him that he “riled me up so much” that I wanted to “take him into the train bathroom” and give him what for and he smiled when he read it.

That night I started to notice Chad kept looking at me and was making quips like he was interested in me. He even jumped on the pull-out couch I was getting settled in and it really bothered me. I told him to stop and I got up and tried to change the situation. He told me to relax and he grabbed my right thigh on either side and tried to lift me up by it, leaving several fingertip bruises afterward.

“Don’t!” I screamed and he wouldn’t let up. I hollered: “Don’t!” again and was shocked when neither NYPD detective upstairs came down to aid me. Chad was off-put enough by that he went down into the basement where he was staying. Anxiety started to spin me up that I was just accosted in my friend’s house and by the wrong man, at that.

I texted Vincent: “This isn’t happening” as I knew he’d suggested the hookup. Shortly thereafter, Tara came downstairs and started filling her water jug up.

I went into the kitchen and said “I’m sorry if I’m ruining your fun.” I thought I was putting the kibosh on a little foursome action that she wanted. She told me to sit down and I began telling her about Chad. She’d said Vincent told her it would be cool if Chad and I got together.

I was shocked he’d said that, but not as shocked as when she said, “what’d he do that got you riled up?”

“What?” I wondered why she was bringing up my text to Vincent as opposed to the man who’d just laid hands on me.

“What did he do that riled you up?” she repeated with emphasis.

I paused for what felt like too long and finally said, “if you are asking me that, I think we need to go farther back.”

She told me she took a screenshot of our texts and retexted it back to Vincent. “He will see it when he wakes up,” she said. Has this happened before? I wondered and my blood turned to ice with fear of what he’d do to me.

I knew what was happening but I just couldn’t comprehend it. I had promised myself that if he fucked me over again, I was going to lay his shit bare in my best Adele. I told her what I was referring to and how I was having trouble piecing it together as I’d been blackout drunk when it happened. I told her how he had implied that we would be a throuple and have a bit of fun while I was there. All of this was news to her.

In fact, when I told her he’d said they’d done it before, she flat denied it. Tara said there had been some talk of them trying but it never really came to fruition. Another lie. She finally told me that it was not my fault, that she was obviously just dealing with a cheating husband. What a relief.

After awhile I realize I’m just staring at one non-existent spot on the kitchen table while I mumble “he is such a fucking liar. He is never going to change.”

“He has changed,” she rebutted. Lying and cheating was his M.O. 30 years ago, he has not changed - he is still a hypocritical self-centered narcissistic asshole. How could he do this to me - again?

The next morning Vincent, Chad and I were supposed to go to a shooting range. Frankly, I didn’t trust either of them not to shoot me, cut me up into little pieces and put me in the freezer. I said “I shouldn’t go tomorrow” and she agreed. I wanted to leave then but knew I was in no condition.

I laid down on the pullout in the living room and just stared. I was nauseated and felt tremors inside myself. I was so twisted up in knots, there was no way I could fall asleep. My loyalty had shifted to Tara in light of this new deceit and I tried to feel justified in telling her what happened. However, I feared the other shoe dropping when Vincent woke and saw our private texts sent from his wife, making me feel I’d been the one to betray him. What will he do to me?

A bit later I heard a commotion upstairs and Vincent came stomping down the stairs and out the door.

I jumped up off of the pullout and hollered “Tara?!” She started down the stairs and I asked her where he went and she told he he went out for cigarettes. “Is he going to hurt me?”

“No. Of course not. Did he say anything to you?”

“No.” I only felt slightly safe because she too had been an NYPD Detective and I had faith in her despite my misgivings about most cops.

I didn’t sleep a wink after he got back. He said nothing to me and didn’t even seem to look in my direction. At the ass-crack of dawn when we were suppose to get up and go, I remained in bed pretending to sleep. Chad came up and talked to Vincent smoking outside on the porch. Chad walked by again and commented to no one that “Crazy Carol isn’t coming.” What a scumbag.

After they left, I could finally exhale. I went into the kitchen with Tara and apologized again but said that I got absolutely no sleep and asked if, now that they left, if she minded if I actually shut my eyes and rested for the trip home. She agreed and I finally slept.

I drove the five hours home in silence. In fact, I was silent for three days. I didn’t talk to my neighbors, nor my dog, nor even myself.

I got up and measured the dry and wet food for my dog, like I always did. I pulled on my shoes and took him outside and started around the building. I diverted from anyone that happened upon my path. Sir Izzy Stardust and I walked, he would do his business, we’d go back inside. I’d take his collar off and give him a treat for being a good boy. But I said nothing. I walked back into my room, took off my shoes and slid right back into bed, clicking the remote. Days turned into weeks.

The weeks-long depression stemmed from thinking too much and not moving enough. I stopped showering and began to feel my service-connected disabilities getting worse. My body slowed and my mental health followed suit in a vicious circle. I thought I was going to die - whether by my own hand or just not waking up one morning. I was resigned to thinking I was done for. Why do I let these things keep happening?

What was broken inside me was a past I tried to relive with just the shiny parts showing. An unhealthy relationship that I thought time and just pouring more love into would fix. But you can’t fix what is irreparably fucked up beyond all repair from the start.

The next spring, I finally let my therapist help me get in a program for disabled veterans and I began a part-time position at the VA Hospital. I eventually started living again. Laughing again. And even starting to feel the tingles of new flirtations when the occasion would arise. It was eleven months later when I received the Facebook message from Vincent apologizing:

“I am sorry for the way things went last year. It was not the plan or how things were supposed to be. [It] surprised me and caught me off guard. I’m sure you don’t believe that but at least this time it’s true.”

That was my apology. The man had invited me to his home with his wife and four kids with the pretense of a relationship unbeknownst to anyone else. He should have been the only one not caught off guard. Reading his apology, I felt and continue to feel nothing. No excitement nor relief. No butterflies and no sadness. It had finally happened - Vincent finally hurt me more than I loved him. And finally, I learned to choose myself.