Talk

Hi, Mom.
How are you doing? I’m about to buy some - for your brother’s flu.
Are you at the drugstore?
Yeah.
Good.
What’s up?
I was just calling to say Hi.
?
What?
What’s the matter, honey, just tell me.
How did you know?
It’s in your voice. Is everything OK?
Well, in a way everything is OK. It’s nothing important. I just did something I shouldn’t have.
Is Thomas with you?
He’s in class right now. I’m at his house, waiting for him. I didn’t call you to talk about it, so don’t worry. Just I’ll call you later, I’m gonna take a shower.
Darla, is it something bad? What did you do? Just tell me.
Hmn well, the computer was open. I looked into his things. His Messenger history.
His what?
Messenger, do you know what it is?
Of course I do. What history are you talking about?
When you talk to people Messenger lets you store your conversations in a folder
In a folder.
in the hard drive
In the hard drive.
So you went
Yeah
And looked.
Yes. I looked at his conversations with his best friend, cause I thought “If there is someone he has been honest to, that’s Jessica”, right?
Let me - give me a second, Darla, OK? I’m leaving the store.
OK. Cause I was thinking about it, before today
OK, now I’m out, tell me.
and I thought about it
About what?
About what had happened between Thomas and Dustin. You know.
Oh, Darla, you really have to give it a break. You are hurting yourself for nothing. It’s in the past, it really is.
I know, I know. I know it is. It’s just - I don’t know, it was there, and I was thinking about how I had never understood some things about what happened, and I knew it’d be a good way to find out.
But you told me he had been honest about it.
He was, it’s just that I knew there would be little things he would probably decide to hide, you know? Everybody does that, and it’s OK for most people. Most people don’t want to know about what their boyfriend’s have done with such and such while they are taking a break from them. But you know how I am.
Yes. You want to know everything, Darla. God knows why. God only knows whom you got that from. Your father has never asked a thing.
Well, that’s not the point right now. He is supposed to come back home in like half an hour. And I wanna tell him what I did, and that I’m sorry, and I want him to know that now I know everything.
Wait, you found something?
Of course I did.
Was it important?
Mmm not really. I mean, he was never unfaithful to me in any way, but I read how he told Jessica him and Dustin had cuddled a couple of times, in bed. And he asked his friend if she thought that was cheating, which of course it’s not, although it explains things much better; to me, you know? Because I had never understood why he would take a break with me, date him for only some weeks, and then want to come back to me with such determination. But now I understand. He said it had just sorta happened, that we had gone on a break because of the long distance relationship, and that even he had been surprised about how things had turned out. But now I know that he was kinda sabotaging himself.
What do you mean?
With the cuddling. Of course if you do that with someone you know likes you, it is going to start affecting you in some way. Especially when I’m not there, when I’m half a country away, and he misses me.
He misses being physical with someone.
Yes.
Yes.
I mean, cuddling it’s nothing, but at the same time you don’t do it, not if you are with someone.
Darla why? I mean, you said you were okay with it. It’s been too many months, and you are there, visiting Thomas, supposedly to have a fun time. You guys are so young. I don’t know. It seems to me you are just putting too much pressure on both of you.
I know, but do you know what it feels like? It feels like the air was pressuring against your skin as if it were to break you in. Especially when there is nothing concretely bad about how everything went about. I mean, he broke up with me, tried dating his friend, which obviously never worked out, and then was sincere with both of us. In all honesty, I hate it.
Haha.
Don’t laugh!
You are laughing too!
It’s because I’m nervous.
Well, you make your mother nervous too, all that stormy weather you’ve always had in you. Seriously, what do you hate?
These shitty things people do. I mean, seriously, why couldn’t he just do something obviously wrong so that my choices as to how to confront this would be more black or white? I just don’t understand why he had to do shady things, instead of either going all the way, or not doing anything at all.
Well, you got that from me. I cannot see why Thomas would be so indecisive about things. But the good part is that what you found gives you the lead to actually once and for all understand that what he did was just tiny stupid mistakes that are not wrong overall. Underneath it all, he was always sincere to you.
Overall.
Overall. But I mean, that is what matters, isn’t it? Who would tell somebody else they’ve cuddled with somebody, or that they are confused about somebody?
Yes, that is true.
Because in the end it doesn’t matter. What matters is that when it became indeed an important source of trouble, he told you and broke it off.
True. I think I’m going to tell him, I feel really bad this time.
You are going to tell him?
Yes.
Darla what for?
I don’t know. It seems that if I hide something else from him, things will not remain solid like they have been for the past months.
How do you think he will react?
He’ll probably get really mad, of course. He’ll understand he cannot trust me. But I need to tell him, because I also want explanations about what I have found, you know?
Don’t tell him, Darla. Why complicate it? You think all couples are honest with each other? You think your father knows everything about me, or me about him?
No, of course not. I’m not naive. But the thing is that I need closure, and if I don’t tell him, I will have these doubts in my head. And I cannot wait some days to think it over.
Because he would notice that you are unwell.
Because then I wouldn’t be able to really show him how sorry I am for being this fucked up.
Can he look in the computer to see if you looked?
I don’t think so. But, yeah, you raise a good point, what if he could?
Mmm Hmm. Well, if you think you know how to handle the conversation, and you trust your good intentions and his, then tell him, tell him. But please don’t be confrontational, especially if he gets mad.
You wouldn’t tell him, would you?
No, no, I would. I am worried that you feel that you have the right to be given explanations about behaviors that are much more in the past than what well, you’ve done your share of inappropriate things, Darla. I’m sorry, but I had to say it.
I know. But he doesn’t know, and there is nobody he could ever find out from, and he won’t ever know. Because I’m not as dumb as to save my messenger conversations in the computer he has access to.
Darla, you are terrible! And you don’t mean that, I know you.
Haha, I’m sorry. It’s true, though. If I look at the situation completely from outside of myself, I do believe the terrible deed here is for him to have done things so honestly and erratically that he didn’t even care to lock the doors behind him.
Hehe, Darla You are one to whom the term “stop thinking” should apply literally to, I swear.
I know. I don’t know what I will do.
Just wait until he comes through the door.
I’ll see how it goes once he gets here.