Best Friend's Revenge

6. Cheating the Five Stages to a Breakup

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XOXO,
LOSALINI

There are, in my understanding, five stages to a breakup.

The first stage, confirmation. This happens when either the words "We're done" or "It's over" slip from your lips, or in my case, when you simply walk away after witnessing your slimy ex cheat on you. This, I believed was the easiest of all the five stages. You just say those words and you're over it.

Second, comes the feeling of loss. Somehow you just feel like there's something missing. Something that you've grown accustomed to isn't there, like your favorite sweater that you wore every winter but can't anymore because it got so tight that it constricts your breathing, or like losing that favourite doll that you slept with every night because you believed it kept the bogeyman away.

In my case, it was the lack of chocolate chip muffins Mrs Burns baked every Wednesday morning which Nate always gave me before first period. And in this case, it was a huge loss, considering those were some really good muffins.

The memories haunting you. That was in my belief, the third stage. Wherever you go, whatever you do, your thoughts are on them. Would they have liked this? Would they have liked that? Or I remember when we went on a date there and he shoved his ice cream in my face.

These thoughts, these memories are ever-present, always there, haunting you like that horrid class photo you took back in eighth that just wouldn't disappear. The memories for me were clearly embedded within. Even in my room, photos of Nate or of us both seemed to pop out of nowhere. They were everywhere. Not to add the fact that I had about three hoodies and a pair of Jordans of Nate's that I hadn't wanted to return because they put me straight to sleep because they smelled of him, a sweet pine and the scent of morning dew and mint.

Fear. This is the fourth stage and I believed it was the hardest. It's where you have those thoughts of turning back because you don't know what to do next. In this stage, you yourself are your own enemy. You don't know how to move on, how to rid yourself of that stench of a memory that person left behind, imprinted into your very soul. Fear of the unknown, fear of what is to come next and fear that you can't truly reform yourself enough to become a person that doesn't depend on him or her.

This is the toughest stage because human beings have a natural tendency to choose the easy road, or to like familiar paths, even like to know what to expect. The familiarity of the old relationship would push this fear into the foresight of your mind, making you not want to change anything or to not try anything new. Just like how most people don't like moving houses or moving to a new country altogether because it lacks familiarity and boasts of the unknown. In my case, fear made me question whether I was truly ready to throw away my six-month-old relationship with Nate, even if I knew that he had cheated on me.

Acceptance, the last stage. This happens as soon as you get over the fourth stage, just like how a descent is easier than the climb up a mountain. Acceptance, when you finally acknowledge that there is no longer a relationship, not even an ounce of a hope that it could happen again. No shell of the relationship remains. No wistful thought, no passing memory, not even the pain of it ending.