Love Trips: I Should Have Seen It Coming
The signs were all there the first day we met and a woman’s intuition never fails. Her coldness. Her disinterest. They all pointed to her desire for D and her disdain for me.
Welcome to Love Trips, a weekly column sharing Sujeiry’s relationship stumbles and (hopefully) wins. Subscribe to get full access to her love stories (it’s like a telenovela!), including audio posts. Next week’s story, “Pussy,” is only for paid subscribers, so subscribe today!
We walked in hand in hand. I turned to D and beamed. This was a monumental moment for us as a couple. We knew what it meant to merge our friends and family together under a Midtown, rooftop bar in NYC. D and I were a serious couple. We were the real fucking deal.
I floated up the stairs. Nothing could kill my vibe. I surveyed the room as I entered and didn’t see any familiar faces. D held me by the waist with his right hand and waved at a girl at the bar with his left. “That’s my friend, Grecia,” he said. And he led me to her.
Grecia hugged D first. She smiled from ear to ear and took a swig from her drink. She looked at me, her smile slightly fading, and pulled me in for a kiss on the cheek, like a good Dominican girl. That was my last interaction with Grecia that night. Despite this being our moment, she chose to mingle with D’s friends as they trickled in.
I felt her distance. Her detachment. Her lack of interest in getting to know me or my loved ones. His friends felt her warmth as she laughed alongside them, chugging drinks while sitting across from me at the other end of the long table. D stood by my side most of the night. His eyes on me. His lips kissing me. His arms holding me. We had sex in the girls bathroom. We were the real fucking deal.
And at the end of the night, drunk with liquid courage (I had enough to drink to have sex in a public restroom), I leaned into D and asked, “What’s up with your friend, Grecia?” I couldn’t shake her energy. I couldn’t ignore my woman’s intuition.
“Nothing, why?” he answered.
“She hasn’t been very friendly. She hasn’t talked to me at all, actually, and isn’t that the point of us getting our friends together?” I replied.
“I don’t know, maybe she had a bad day. Don’t read into it, boo.”
I didn’t read into her behavior. I carried on that night and solely focused on my friends and my bae. I carried on at D’s birthday party months later, ignoring her phony attempts at friendliness, and focused on celebrating my bae. I carried on a year later after I cursed her out for saying “pussy” and blurting out various sexual innuendos in front of my bae, and suppressed my demands of “no contact” between her and my bae. I carried on after finding their text exchange on his phone three years later, and forgave him for his indiscretion because of my love for my son and my bae.
I should have seen it coming. The signs were all there the first day we met and a woman’s intuition never fails. Her coldness. Her disinterest. They all pointed to her desire for D and her disdain for me. Because we were the real fucking deal. We were the real fucking deal until she became a real fucking problem. Until he chose her over me again and again and again.
Next week’s story, “Pussy,” delves into the night where I fought with Grecia. Become a paid subscriber to read that story next Thursday.