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My friend had sent me pictures of her with my boyfriend on a recent camping trip.
Photo: Getty Images
In the following days, friends, acquaintances, and even professors came forward.
I left the apartment I shared with my boyfriend, moving in with some people I knew only peripherally.
He moved out, toointo the apartment he had kept in secret.
The author, Ling Ling Huang.
But it wasnt enough.
I felt an ongoing and deep sense of embarrassment.
I started avoiding campus and stopped interacting with most of my friends, feeling like I couldnt trust anyone.
I began to drink excessively and visit strip clubsvery out of character for me.
I wanted to leave my body, enter the body of someone this wouldnt have happened to.
A week later, I was surprised by how easy it felt to forgive him.
I gave him his mail, and felt no ill will.
I suppose I had been socialized to expect this kind of betrayal from a man.
What if I didnt have to lose her?
We spent a lot of time together in the next few weeks.
We pieced things together as if we were litigators on the same case.
I had shown him around Toronto the year before, and he followed the same itinerary with her.
I tried not to take their affair personally.
But it was hard.
I often failed, spiraling into blame and envy.
The problem, I began to think, was that I was not enough like her.
I also began to realize that competition had always been present in our relationship.
Who could find the deepest meaning of the scripture?
Who could better inspire our fellow sisters?
Because we had the same violin professor, we heard and critiqued each others performances often.
The realization of how layered our friendship had always been made me spin.
And I knew that she felt the same.
In a confessional moment, she had admitted it.
I started to wonder if there wasnt something slightly punitive or retaliatory about the affair.
Maybe even for both of them.
The year before, I had beat both her and my ex in our school-wide competition.
I had a brief, but intense fling shortly after the breakup.
A couple weeks later, she called to explain that she had slept with the same person.
She gave a lot of the same excuses, much less believably this time.
Proof that she loved me, too, and just didnt know how to show it.
She and I dont speak anymore, but I think of her often.
As complex as my feelings about her are, almost no relationship has shaped me more.
