"Mint Green Polo", a Writing Exercise

              "I had thought, fiercely believed, sniffled, shouted and pushed, kissed, groped, slaked, baked, yearned and sacrificed and oh, look! Look at the couples, some visibly nervous, some smiling, and one particular groom with what must have been a death wish because there, in his beloved mint green polo, was Kev..."

             When I found out Kev was cheating on me, I was watching one of my favorite actresses promote a contraption on some daytime talk show that's supposed to elongate your neck.I was staring in disbelief at a coiled blue tube and at the facial expressions on the leggy TV ladies as I folded dish towels and realized I needed a haircut and wondered if my next paycheck would cover my expensive health insurance plan. I was not about to give up my doctor. Or the salon gift certificate from Kev’s mom at Christmas. Or Kev. I’ve been in love with that skinny fool since we started dating at age twenty. We did so much growing side-by-side, going through school and family mishaps, managing his weird allergy to gluten and my eight-month stint as a hermit, both of which inspired me to throw myself into cooking, filling my stomach and often his with stir fry dotted by pieces of lime, blueberry pork tenderloin, and cupcakes made with lavender to name a few. Also, we learned how to communicate. I made him a username on my Netflix account. He made me a toy walrus, hand-stuffed with a sloppily stitched belly, presenting it on my birthday, naming him "Bulky". It took six years to build that relationship and find myself ready to ask for a big, definitive step: buying a house together. I was planning to bring it up the next time we had a barbecue date night, scheduled to be just forty-eight hours from the day I found out about his cliché other life. Just imagine: One minute, I was amused by a woman going on about making her neck more graceful, and the next, after changing the channel, I was blinking at a live local news segment set outside city hall, featuring a line of couples waiting to be married. The line was so long that it trickled outside. This would have surprised me on any other day, but this was one of my least favorite dates on the calendar, Valentine's Day, and over the years, Kev had grown comfortable with my total disinterest in the holiday, not acknowledging it, agreeing to spend that money on me at Christmas or my birthday instead. I had thought, fiercely believed, sniffled, shouted and pushed, kissed, groped, slaked, baked, yearned and sacrificed and oh, look! Look at the couples, some visibly nervous, some smiling, and one particular groom with what must have been a death wish because there, in his beloved mint green polo, was Kev, his pinkie finger linked with that of a short chick whose outfit screamed ‘board room’, not ‘wedding day’, and I nearly fell over. I tore the towel in my hands. This was not the ideal way to learn that Kev must not have been so stressed about money anymore, and clearly he had meant something else when I asked about work and his reply was, “I’m looking for new options”. Who was this other woman? Did that even matter? And was she more easygoing? Did she make more money than me,  working in law or medical billing or finance? Kev saw the live news camera pan his way and man, did he quickly spot something interesting far in the other direction. His lady squeezed his hand with hers and muttered something. I started to repeatedly say, “Oh no”, as if my TV could somehow realize my crisis and change the channel itself. This was horrible. My feelings wanted one thing, my mind another; this was Heathers and I was Veronica. Understand: With me, betrayal doesn't initially want to look classy and resilient like Maria Shriver: it wants to look like Lorena Bobbitt. Something stabbed sharply right around my sternum, a pang I hadn't felt since the fight Kev and I had on his 24th birthday, nearly breaking us up. We each collected our things from the other's apartment. He had carried himself with an air of indifference at the time that was flat-out disturbing. I remembered that vividly as I stared at the television.

'Holy...'       
               With that, the TV was off, keys in my hand, sneakers on my feet, and I drove with determination, using the key Kev gave me when he'd moved into his Appleton Park apartment in 2012.

'Idiot.’

               A green duffel was in the trunk of my Honda Accord, a bag I normally used when staying over at his place, and tonight, it would be put to its most righteous use. In his apartment were two cheap rings and a thermos I'd forgotten there over time, a box of tissues from his desk that I kept there. I turned the air conditioning on blast and took a Sharpie to the beer ad that hung above the bedroom door, taking the sexy raven-haired woman whose shapely body straddled a keg and leaving her with a uni-brow, a bonnet and a long, modest dress. In my mind, it served Kev f***in' right. I took what I thought was his favorite video game and the only tie he owned. All of his shaving cream went into the duffel, now mine to use on my legs and that one dark, stubby little hair that wanted to grow on the underside of my chin. The next impulsive decision was to claim his French press, along with half the spices in the kitchen, and, just to add immature cruelty to the situation, I ate a noticeable portion of the cookie dough ice cream too. I spent a while guessing at the password to his laptop, cracked it, and took all of the pictures it contained from that time we traipsed through Heidelberg Castle and and Cologne's Dom and the Black Forest, the one time I might ever see Germany. I could not imagine a time when I would remember those days without bitterness. I was currently incapable of anything but slowly getting over shock and betrayal. As I filled my bag with his stuff and wiped my snotty nose on my wrist, I couldn't think of his perfect skin, Roman nose and slow, thoughtful drawl without shame at his deceit overtaking those thoughts in waves, wondering how, how, how this had gone on for so long and run so deep that the moron wanted to get married at all let alone with that other woman, and all without my having an inkling that he'd been looking elsewhere for attention. Maybe I traded my brain for pink, fluffy house insulation. Had I been neglectful? Did I love him too much? I refused to regret informing him this past April that I had hoped to someday marry him, but at the same time, had I been too wrapped up in myself to see signs of his disinterest, his pulling away?  Or was he too self-centered for me? Too flighty? Had his eyes been eagerly hunting for a new hook-up to escape a relationship that, for him, had grown stale? Was this old news and I was the last person to catch on? When did he get over me? Was he over me?...He had to be...right? At that thought, I growled aloud and snatched up his well-loved copy of The Martian from beneath a pile of papers on his desk. 
               "Screw him," I muttered. 
               I was so upset, so surprised by this douche bag. Cynicism was creeping in, replacing my previous thought about not regretting a declaration of commitment, demanding to know why I had made any plans with Kev's involvement in mind. Why jump to such conclusions? What was the point in giving energy, kisses and respect to an undeserving jerk? Suddenly I again imagined him holding hands with that presumably horrible woman outside town hall and promptly stomped over to his closet, throwing it open, grabbing his blue hoodie with the white-lined zipper. What if I took his silverware too? Is that insane? I instead took a deep breath. "Yes it is."     
                This led to dropping the duffel at my feet, half-crying, half-hiccupping on the arm of the couch. Which led to my heartbeat panicking every time footsteps trailed inside from the front door of Kev's apartment building. I listened to someone clomp down the hallway. My spine straightened, pulse lifting, my eyelashes, spiked by tears and mascara, detached from each other due to the force of my eyes flying open. The footsteps passed Kev's apartment and let themselves into another. My shoulders relaxed and I leaned forward, zipping up the duffel. My eyes, cheekbones and throat were so tired, and yet...the door to the building had opened and closed again, with footsteps moving away from it, squeaking a bit on the hallway floor, heading my way just like the previous passerby, and as I heard the jangle of keys, I felt some relief at having finally been made to step it up as an individual in an evolving world on a planet that would keep turning regardless of what happened to me, and I could now give myself permission to stop subverting my needs. My boyfriend was leaving me in what I saw as a cowardly fashion, but he was also stepping out of the way of my future, of my well-being. He was sending a clear signal that I was allowed to write every angry essay and poem, an empowering web series executive produced by Fonda and Tomlin -- anything I wanted to creatively get successful revenge. Screw this. And screw him, that moron in the mint green polo.