"Don't you understand? I'll die without you!"

I was immediately overcome by a sudden fierceness. I was so angry I was able to break free from his stifling embrace. "You'll die without me?" I barked a sarcastic laugh. "Tyler Lorenzo, do you even hear yourself? Whether your claim is true or not, I don't give a rat's a.s.s!"

"How can you move on so easily, Nat?" every word was full of hurt and anguish. "Did you even love me?"

"I can't believe you have the b.a.l.l.s to throw those words at me. Who jumped in bed with my worst enemy? Who broke his promise to love me and only me? Who got into a relations.h.i.+p with the person he cheated with right after begging me to take him back?" My words gushed out, I didn't know that I would be so affected by his selfish remark.

"I explained everything to you but you wouldn't listen to me! Rach.e.l.le was there to comfort me when you dumped me, I was at my lowest and she.. She was there. She was there when you weren't."

"Did you expect me to stay after what you did? How do you expect me to be with someone who broke my trust! You are tainted to me, you're no longer the person I fell in love with. I can never stand the thought that the touch that once belonged only to me was experienced by someone else!" I choked at the last words. The pain was coming back to me now. I thought I was healed.. That avoiding him like the plague would heal me.

I was wrong. His stupid accusation was enough to open the intangible box containing all the pain I tried so hard to let go.

-------------------------------------------------

Ten years ago, Tyler and I graduated from college. We've been together since soph.o.m.ore year and he was my everything. I experienced my many firsts with him: relations.h.i.+p, kiss, and of course, s.e.x.

I met him in one of my English cla.s.ses, he was my seatmate. The first time I laid my eyes on him I was immediately attracted. He is tall, his skin glistened like bronze, and his almond eyes had a playful s.h.i.+ne in them that i found very appealing. Whenever he was asked to recite a poem in front of the entire cla.s.s by our professor, I would always subconsciously close my eyes and relish every word he uttered. The deep timbre of his voice seemed to reverberate all around me, it was perfect.

Apparently he noticed this habit of mine and after one of our cla.s.ses, he teased me about it. I was embarra.s.sed but I tried to mask it by pretending not to know what he was saying. He would pester me about it whenever he saw me to the point that I started looking forward to meeting him the hallways of our university.

The teasing turned into short talks in the school chapel, those short talks then turned into exchanging cellphone numbers and eating lunch together until it progressed into him kissing me without warning while I was telling him about something as mundane as what happened when I fed my cat earlier that day.

When I asked him what happened, he cheekily said that he stole a kiss and that he wasn't in the least bit guilty about it. I laughed at his shamelessness, perhaps because I was hoping for that day to come. Needless to say, before that day ended, i was already his girlfriend.