Her Heart Was Broken — Twice, By the Same Guy!

A story from the male side of relationship breakups.

You’d think we’d learn valuable lessons from our mistakes, right? What if we keep making those same stupid mistakes? Does this mean we’re not meant for love at all?

My involvement in this heartbreak story doesn’t come from the perspective you’d first expect, although when it comes to love and breakups, nothing should be expected. Fairytales have an uncanny knack of being ruined at the most inopportune times.

Maybe karma is involved with misfortunes of the heart—it might well explain Nina’s run of bad luck of late.

Of course, it wasn’t all like that, not sixteen years ago.

It was nearing the end of summer when she met a nice guy at her local bus stop. Both of them commuted to the city each day for work. They struck up a friendship and began sitting on the bus together. One day, he handed her a poem he’d written on a piece of paper the night before. Nina fell for him hard. No one had written her anything, much less a poem. Their three-year love affair seemed perfect throughout. Unfortunately, it ended abruptly when he told her he didn’t love her anymore. I’m told that her tears soaked a pillow every night for over a month or so.

She kept that poem in her purse for many years. She never knew why she did that, as she hated what it represented. But a part of her wanted to hang onto something of what she once had. A decade passed before she opened and reread it. Time had healed the hurt, comforting her instead of being a reminder of pain. Whenever she had a shitty day, she’d reach into her purse, take out the piece of folded-up paper that held those precious words on it and read the poem to herself. It always made her feel better afterwards.

Yesterday, I bumped into a mutual friend of ours in the city.

“How’s she doing?” I asked, as we both stood outside Cafe Today.

Susie was on her lunch break. “Single—still. Still working at the same place.”

Susie is an attractive, bright-eyed, leggy brunette. Suzie and Nina went to high school together. They’ve been good friends ever since graduating.

“Is she happy?” I asked.

Whenever Suzie talks to me about her friend Nina, she guards her words.

“Happy? Of course, she is,” she nodded throughout her words. She paused, gathered her thoughts and then measured each word she spoke again. “Happy, yes, absolutely. She’s got a promotion. Yep, earning a lot of money now, a lot. Very happy lady, that one.”

“Nice,” I replied, although I was sceptical due to her insistence on the issue.

“Y’know, we went shoe shopping the other day, and she found these fantastic red ones on sale. I said to her, ‘Go girl! Those heels look stunning on you!’ She bought them, and we decided to go to the casino and try them out that night. They worked. Those shoes turned a lot of heads.”

The flow of information suddenly poured forth—and I know why it did. The unhappy part of her girlfriend’s story was minimised as the brightest bits shone through the silvery lights of optimism.

“Great. I’m happy for her.”

“She was even hit on by two guys that night. Two! They bought us drinks. Yep, we didn’t have to pay for drinks all night long.”

“Nice. Take those guys home, did she?”

“No.”

“One guy?”

“No! No, guys, you fool. Not that it’s any of your business. But she could’ve if she wanted to. It turned out one was married, and the other was a creep. She can do better. She’s much better than that.”

“She is much better than that,” I added.

She glared at me, and I saw a deep crinkle develop above her nose. “You! What would you know? You don’t know anything about her.”

“Me? What? All I said was that she can do better. I’m actually agreeing with you. Is she happy or not?”

“Yes, I said she’s happy. I’m just saying… she’s… there’s just… y’know, oh, forget it, let’s just say she’s happy and leave it at that, okay?”

“Okay then. She’s happy. Got it.”

There’s a good reason why Susie frowned and snapped at me. I was the one who broke Nina’s heart. But I wasn’t malicious. Nina just wasn’t the one for me. We’d been drifting apart for a while. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I didn’t leave her for anyone else. We were young and at the beginning of our lives when we started. Our changes were becoming apparent, and I didn’t like where they were going.

Unfortunately, there’s little equity felt in many breakups. While one person’s heart breaks, the other appears to move on without regret. In truth, I wasn’t happy either. The pain I caused her kept me up at night — and I was lonely, too. All I wanted to do was call her and ask how she was doing. I wanted to hear her voice again. It would’ve been easier to go back than suffer.

But that’s not how it works, right? It sends the wrong message. It takes us down a path we didn’t want to walk. It’s called a breakup, not a hookup. There’s a good reason why the word break is used.

Susie flicked back her long hair over her shoulders and smiled wryly. “She’s still got your poem.”

“She does?”

“Yes. She pulled it out at the casino.”

When that relationship ended sixteen years ago, I was made out to be the world’s evilest man. I got messages from strangers who accused me of seeing other women, using Nina for sex and taking advantage of her insecurities. One person even used the words ‘abused her’ in their correspondence. I felt sick when I heard that.

“I can’t believe she kept it all this time.”

Susie responded quickly with sarcasm, “Oh, yes. She thought the world of you. I don’t know why.”

Nina really did a number on me after that. Trusting anyone and getting past the mess took me a long time. It would’ve been better not to have known her than to deal with the breakup’s fallout. Abuse her? It’s no wonder many men fall into despair.

“I’d forgotten about that poem. I just remember a lot of nasty things being said to me.”

Susie’s eyes dipped and then rose again. “You must admit, you deserved it.”

Deserved it? I didn’t deserve any of it. She and her friends turned me into a villain for no reason.

“I guess, but I could’ve done without the drama.”

“That’s what you get for doing what you did.”

“Do you actually believe that staying together was better for both of us?”

Susie was silenced. She’s the queen of short-lived relationships and a self-confessed breakup perpetrator. A man only has to say one wrong thing, and she’s off like a shot. Any small reason is reason enough for her to break up with a guy.

None of us are teenagers anymore. Susie knows all too well that the ideal love story is part dream and part hard work, the latter of which she lacks.

“You could’ve been nicer to her when you did it.”

“I was as nice as possible, but it’s not easy. I tried to—”

“That’s not how I heard it happened. Anyway, I actually want to talk about the poem.”

I sensed that there was an agenda at hand.

“The poem? What about it?”

“She Googled a line of it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She was up late one night and wondered why your words sounded so mature. That’s so unlike you. And guess what? They weren’t your words at all. It turns out you stole that poem from someone else.”

“I never said it was mine. I don’t even remember what I wrote. I just know it matched what I wanted to say and wrote it.”

“Oh, don’t give me that. You cheated.”

“Is that what she thinks? I cheated her?”

“Of course she does. She thought you came up with it, but you didn’t. You stole it. Y’know, she used that poem for support. You’ve broken her heart again and again. Each time she pulled it out, she read a lie, and you knew it. All this time you—”

“Oh, stop it, Susie! Stop! I can’t believe this nonsense is still happening. It’s been, what, nearly two decades? She’s got to get on with her life—and you’re not helping her! It’s keeping her down. You tell her I’m sorry, but she has to take responsibility for her side and grow up. Tell her that I’m not the source of her unhappiness. Only she can change that.”

“She isn’t unhappy. I just told you she’s happy, very happy.”

“Yes, yes, I heard you. Red shoes fixed everything, right?”

“Exactly! She was happy… I mean, she is happy, perfectly happy, and she doesn’t need new shoes to attract men to feel good.”

“Men? I’m not talking about men. I’m talking about happiness. Nina’s happiness isn’t measured by the looks she gets from across the room. She’s not like you.”

“Just what are you implying, Mitchell? And are you saying Nina can’t—”

“You attract the guys. You score the free drinks and raise the body count. You did all the work, not her or her new shoes.”

“That’s wrong. I—”

“Took the creepy guy home and fucked him silly, didn’t you?”

“No! It was his place—I mean, I did not do that. I mean I—”

“You mean to say you didn’t tell Nina about that? You did the guy and kept it a secret.”

“Were you at the casino? You saw us. Were you stalking us?”

“Put your paranoia away. I don’t have to see anything to know what went on. Creeps in bars don’t scare you, Susie. You like that in a guy. They’re like candy. I know your type.”

“You were stalking me that night, weren’t you?”

I ignored her switch to first-person and took another chance.

“And a married man, too? Nothing stops you.”

“Oh my god, you were there! You followed me! You’re a sick man, Mitchell. You need help. Nina was right. You’re a total psycho. Oh my god, I gotta, I gotta go. I can’t be around you anymore. You’re bad karma.”

She didn’t deny anything. Susie did both guys. I did not expect that result.

She frantically shook her head from side to side while flapping her hands. “No, no, this is not happening!” She backed away, turned, and switched her sidestep into a forward trot. Her shoes clicked against the pavement as she went, slowly fading into the city’s background noise. She stepped between parked cars, crossed the street and then disappeared into a cluster of pedestrians walking the opposite way.

It was a shame she left so abruptly. I wanted to ask her if she was still seeing the two men. I guess I already knew the answer to that one.

As for Nina, I’m sure the casino night started with good intentions. Those new shoes would’ve made her feel much better—and there would’ve been smiles and laughter immediately afterwards. And then Susie’s monster personality kicked in. A pretty big ego lives inside that woman, and Nina’s is no match. She would’ve felt small when she became the outsider to a developing threesome.

I bet she felt even lousier the next day, and not just because of the boozy night on the town.

Officially, I have only broken Nina’s heart once, but it seems to keep breaking for reasons totally out of my control.

However, I’m somehow still responsible for each one of them.

-M

ABOUT