questions to which I already know the answer...

... but refuse to acknowledge.

S and I have been apart for well over two months now.

Yesterday, I checked my Cingular account to see if I needed to pay the bill. (Recall that I am deployed.) I realized that S's phone was still on my account. I also realized that making calls and sending desperate text messages to her from Qatar in February and March were very expensive decisions. (I digress: had it led to any success in saving the relationship, I wouldn't have batted an eye at dropping $600. Alas, it was for not.)

S, in her frantic assurances back in March that she'd do "everything she could to make this easier," promised to remove her phone from my account. She hadn't.

I have so little willpower, sometimes. I spent hours last night poring over the phone records. I knew what I was looking for.

I discovered that the very day I'd left for this deployment, she began making long, long phone calls at all hours of the day (and night.) They have continued through today. They were to a number I didn't recognize. They did not belong to Mommy, or either of her sisters. I instantly surmised that this new phone number belongs to Dan.

Again, with my willpower: like an obsessive voyeur, I investigated the number using the variety of reverse lookup tools with which I am familiar. No joy. I seriously entertained the idea of paying the $14 to US Search for a full report; I know it works, I've used it in the past. Sad. I didn't. I don't need to pay someone to tell me something I already know.

I did write the number down, though. It's him, I'm sure of it. Why? I have no idea. I really don't. But I also know that I won't discard it. I'll have it for a long time.

So, obviously this was painful for me. I'm obsessing, I have no doubt. To what end, though?

I recall that I asked S, in a rare moment of lucidity before I left, if she intended so see him. She told me that she "had no reason to," and that they wouldn't be working together anymore, anyway. I recalled the email I sent him. For a moment, I took this as some sort of ill-claimed "victory." Again, I'm not sure why. I suppose that despite all my self-assurances to the contrary --that I'd not get vengeful-- , I really did want to destroy her relationship with him. Of course, I have occasionally reflected back on those statements and realized that Shina hadn't told me anything, really. That what she'd said meant nothing. And I also realized that she'd lied to me so many times since last October, that whatever she said now was not worth the breath she'd wasted in uttering it. Yet still I sought the assurance. The comfort.

---

Break.

I've just returned from mid-rats, where (as fate would have it) I sat across from an Army Captain whose office I have frequently used over the months. It occurred to me that the last time I'd been in it, I was using her phone to call S. And I was so in love. So content. It was only a couple of months ago.

How transient it all is. I was a different person, then. Yet I'm the same person now. I don't understand.

Anyway. Back to my self-indulgence.

---

So, I emailed S to remind her that her phone was still on my account. What I didn't write was more significant: I'm tired of paying for your minutes, only to have you use them to call your new boyfriend. And is this number your new boyfriend?

After I'd sent that short message, I was suddenly inspired to send another: that I had paid the bill, and it was $600, and I just wanted her to know that I had taken my own "financial hit from all of this." I don't know why -- or what I'd intended to accomplish. Probably to make her feel guilty. (I am still very doubtful of her ability to actually feel true guilt.)

Today, she responded. She sent me perhaps half a dozen emails, all at various stages of her process to rectify the problem. In it, she wrote a number of things that altogether inspired me to write this blog.

I feel like addressing them one at a time:

"I hope you are staying safe." Why does she care? And what the hell am I supposed to do to make myself safe? I either am, or I'm not.

"Well see how it goes :)" This just makes me angry. A little smiley face? That's what I'm entitled to, now?

"Also let me know if you need any money, I'm not sure what you meant in that one email about how you are taking financial hits but I'll help as much as I can if you need me." Oh? I can count on you, now? What the fuck? She can give me money, she can "be there" to send my dogs off to my mom, she can store all my shit from the garage, but she can't just be honest with herself and with me and EXPLAIN why she didn't love me as much as I loved her?

"I'll send that to the chick at cingular and hopefully we will be done with this today, kinda sad but its gotta be done i guess." Oh, this is fucking PRICELESS. It's "kinda sad" now? How trivialized this has, apparently, all become. "Kinda sad." How about the most PAINFUL FUCKING EXPERIENCE I COULD HAVE EVER IMAGINED? SO PAINFUL THAT I STILL DON'T DRAW A BREATH WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT HER... So painful that I HATE myself for not being able to let go -- that I can't just forget the whole sordid disaster for more than an hour or two. Am I to understand that "it's gotta be done"means that separating the cell phones is the final step for her -- the nail in the coffin? That not making me actually shell out real, honest-to-God-money to enable her to have (and continue) to chase her illegitimate relationship means that she's OK now? That this is the clear evidence that EVERYTHING IS OVER?

"Ok I did it I am on my account as of today." 'Guess so.