What she thinks.

 I try not to spend too much time thinking about her. She is not my issue. My concern. My beef.

You are.

But there are times I can’t help but wonder what she knows and how she feels. It’s jealousy, pure and simple. I want to know why.

I can understand how it happens. She’s hurting. You’re hurting. You find some comfort in supporting each other and little by little, a relationship grows.

I’d like to think you weren’t out there looking for that. But what do I know? This could have been going on for a decade or more. (The book she had in her Amazon cart in 2009 with the MCAT prep seems to suggest she considered herself the other woman way back then.) 

At some point, it moves from friendship to something more. Maybe you both jump in with both feet, no hesitation. Or, maybe you think about it and talk about it a lot before it happens. But at some point, it happens. You’re more than friends and new possibilities bloom.

I’m betting it’s sort of exciting. Forbidden on some level. She knows you’re still married, as do you. Intentional or not, it continues. Mistake or not, it continues. Healing or not, it continues.

I wonder what you say about me. Am I this cold-hearted bitch that doesn’t understand you and never lets you have your say? Someone who just worries about money and is always looking to catch you doing something wrong? Someone who has made your life miserable?

Or do you tell her the truth about how you lied to me with the construction business and then found yourself in the same spot again … too afraid to hurt me or too chicken to be honest with me? Does she try to convince you to come clean so you can enter this thing with her with no strings?

Maybe she can see how fragile you are at the moment and she’s really just trying to help you. She’s also trying to protect you, as am I, but in very different ways.

Or, you might not be telling her anything at all. You might have a story created that isn’t reality, but makes enough sense to get by. I have to wonder what she thinks about a man who shows up and has no connections to his friends, his daughter, his wife, his LIFE. That would seem odd to me, but, again, what do I know?

The good news is that she has the means and the ability to maneuver a little. She can work anywhere … basically write her own ticket. Her income is substantial … it can afford a nice home and a fixer upper in Iowa. She can buy and sell in 6 months or so in NC without worrying about making a dime. She can get you to WY … your dream … on 60 acres, with horses and a motorhome and a new truck with ease.

Let’s face it. She wins that contest. I’m just miserable at Van Galder, working for pennies, trying to cover rent with essentially no help.

She must think I’m an idiot. (This part really cuts me to the core.) She has spent every day with you for the better part of three years, so I can imagine she thinks we are done. She gets Saturdays and birthdays and Packer games and Christmas and Thanksgiving and bonfires and yardwork and vacations and weekend getaways and trips to the Mexican restaurant for burritos as big as your head. She gets them all. She even gets trips back here to see her uncle. To stay in Beloit for a few days. You’re not here … you’re with her. Why would she think otherwise?

Does she know we talk every day? Several times a day? Does she look at your phone and see the 12,000 text messages where you repeatedly tell me how much you love me?

But, let's face it. You're talking to her that much or more. Seriously, how do you fit it all in? 

Or maybe it’s a game … she knows you’re snowing me and thinks it’s hilarious.

When you were in Edgerton to see her uncle, did you drive her by the house? Did you stop by when you knew I wouldn’t be here? Did you come in and comment on my housekeeping? Or worse?

Has she looked me up on Linked In or Facebook? Or, could she care less because she knows that you have made a choice and there is no “competition” anyway.

At some point, I’m guessing she wants to move your relationship with her forward. But you’re tied to me, so she can’t. Perhaps marriage isn’t the goal, but it would be nice to know you’re not still entangled.

I also consider the fact that she might have saved you. Maybe you were really in a bad way and she was the one who brought you through the darkness. Do I owe her some sort of thanks for making sure you made it through?

Maybe she knows everything about the legal and financial trouble because you’ve been completely honest with her. Or maybe she knows nothing because you tell her nothing. In all likelihood, it’s somewhere in between.

I wonder if she’s “easy to communicate with” because she hasn’t had to deal with all the hell you and I have walked through. (And survived, hand in hand, heart to heart, or so I thought.)

For a while I wondered if you told her we were already divorced … and that you had married her.

Do you lay in bed with her and tell her that nothing can come between the two of you as long as you are connected in that way?

Her Cadillac was parked in the driveway when Karla and I first pulled into your place last Thursday. It wasn’t there when we returned. Did you tell her we were there? What did she say?

Is she pulling on you, too? Did she give you some sort of ultimatum as I did? Is possession 9/10 of the law?

Does she think she won?

Does she think I lost?

Or is she really just a nice woman caught up in the same tsunami that I am, trying to find or hold onto love?

Let’s face it, you are charming. And you are wonderful when you’re you. You can swoop in, all hero-like, and take care of shit. You can make a woman feel special and loved and protected and treasured. Your laugh and your stories and your ease are infectious.

The truth is, I like the version of me I am when I’m around you better than I like the real me. You have that affect on people.

Does she make you feel good? Are you happy to be there? Do I make you feel bad? Your answers in the truck that day didn’t bring me any closer to understanding this.

I’ll never know the answers to these questions, I suspect. She knows whatever you want her to know. I have fantasies about calling her out on social media, creating all sorts of nasty events just to disrupt the smooth sailing that you seem to be looking for.

I’m unlikely to carry them out, because in the end, it wouldn’t make me look very good and it would take away a little more of my dignity.

But between the three of us, you have to get that I am the one who is most in the dark. I’m hoping you can’t blame me for wondering. You’ve been able to talk about all of this for a long time, while I’m here by myself with no information, no answers, no anything.

And I’m still dying to know what she knows.