Iweala iyapo
@iyapoiweala7444
26 days ago

It was a Tuesday. October 17th. I remember because I’d just got home from teaching at the BlackArtGallery, my fingers still smelling like turpentine and charcoal. Jordan was in the shower.

We’d been together seven years. Seven years, two apartments, one dog, a shared savings account, and a ring I’d found in his sock drawer three months ago. He said it was for his mom’s birthday.

I sat down on the couch to scroll through my phone. His phone was on the coffee table, screen up. A notification popped up. A text from someone named Maya.

My hand moved before my brain caught up.

“Hey babe, can’t wait to see you Thursday. That hotel near the stadium was perfect last time. Think you can get away again? ❤️”

I read it three times. Seven years. I read it three times.

My whole body went cold. Like someone had unplugged me from the sun.

Jordan walked out of the bathroom, towel around his waist, hair dripping. He saw my face. He saw the phone in my hand. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there, mouth slightly open.

I held up the phone.

“Who is Maya?”

He didn’t lie. That’s the part that broke me. If he had lied, maybe I could’ve pretended for another week, another month, another year. But he just looked at the floor and said, “I’m sorry.”

Not “it’s not what you think.” Not “she’s just a friend.” Just “I’m sorry.”

That was the moment. The exact second the floor dropped out.

I threw his phone at the wall. It cracked the screen and left a dent in the drywall. He didn’t flinch. He never flinched.

I left that night. Stayed at my sister’s place in Bushwick. Cried so hard I threw up in her bathroom at 3am. She held my hair back and didn’t say a word.

The next day was cultureandsport day at the gallery. I had to teach a workshop to thirty teenagers while my heart was getting ripped out of my chest. I painted a portrait of him and then painted over it with black oil paint. Over and over until it was just a dark square.

That was six months ago.

I still have his toothbrush in my medicine cabinet. I don’t know why. Maybe to remind myself that I left. That I chose myself.

I found out later Maya was someone he met at an art opening I couldn’t go to because I had a fever. She was a photographer. She didn’t know about me. Texting her was the hardest conversation I’ve ever had. She cried too. We both got played.

I’m writing this from my new studio in Crown Heights. Single bed. One window. No shared savings account.

I’m not okay. I’m not not okay. I’m learning that grief doesn’t have an expiration date. Some days I still smell turpentine and feel like he’s about to walk in the door. Some days I laugh louder than I have in years.

I don’t know if I’ll love again. But I know I loved him. And that’s not something to be ashamed of.

I’m still here. That’s the only ending I have.

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