The Puppy

He was always very open with his phone.

We would watch videos together on it.

He would show me pictures in his camera roll.

I saw his calendar, websites—everything.

He unlocked his phone in front of me so I would see his passcode.

Like he had nothing to hide.

Like he was living in integrity.

One of the last nights we spent together, we were lying in bed and he was scrolling through the photos in his Favorites album.

He was showing me images that mattered to him.

Old photos of him with his first wife.

Photos with his current—but estranged—second wife.

Then he scrolled forward and showed me the photos of me he had saved there.

It felt intentional.

Like he was letting me know I belonged in that same category.

Then he exited the album—but not the photo app.

And there, in his regular camera roll, was a photo of a puppy.

He had never mentioned a puppy.

And it definitely wasn’t his.

So I asked whose it was.

“Oh,” he said, and named her.

Her.

The woman he had admitted to having a complicated relationship with before.

The woman who had given him the gift with song lyrics about California Stars—the one I accidentally found in his car while grabbing a cigarette.

The one he told me was too independent, and that’s why he had ended it a long time before him and me.

The one he had been working with closely for months.

The one who sent him the sunset photo he let me see.

The same woman who—now—I genuinely hope is okay.

I’ve written a lot about how I abandoned myself in that relationship.

About my lack of standards.

My blurred boundaries.

But what I understand now is this:

Love doesn’t always choose self-respect first.

Sometimes it chooses hope.

Connection.

Survival.

Sometimes it stays because leaving feels more dangerous than believing.

Maybe he was trying to get rid of me.

But why would he put me in the same category as “wifey”?

And why would he have given me the $6600 diamond necklace just a few weeks earlier for Christmas?

I hurt for that version of me.

And he knew exactly what he was doing.

Author’s Note

If you’ve read the piece I wrote about triangulation, this is what it looks like in real life.

Destabilization.

Comparison.

Insecurity.

Compliance.

Control and manipulation.