I had just come back from an internship in Washington, D.C., working for a senator from Ohio, and was looking forward to cruising through my last semester of college. It would be one last slide of enjoyment. Then I discover my girlfriend is seeing this dude I kinda new, one ugly f—. Trip something. He looked like Groucho Marx. It was one of the first nights back at school, and I was at a house party off-campus. Liz and this guy, Trip, were there. With no warning or anything – with no 'Hey, we need to talk; things haven’t been going well with you and me; I’m seeing this guy' – she had started hooking-up with him. How could she be interested in him? But there they were, enjoying each other’s company in plain view, she hanging on the punch line of each one of his dumb jokes. It was like they were taunting me, or something. I flipped out, right then and there at the party. Made for an ugly scene, the whole nine. As Trip and she sought refuge and were driving away in her Volkswagon, I went out into the driveway and actually punched her driver side window as she roared by. I was crazy with jealousy, with her betrayal. This wasn’t part of the plan?
Another night, I pulled her out into the hall of her dorm room, when she opened the door and I could see him inside. I remember I slapped her before I knew what I was doing. She started screaming like I was knifing her. I took off, running through the long, silent hallway before doors began to open. The rest of the night – the semester – was a blur. I was basically drunk the whole time, and not in a good way. There would be occasions that I would try to talk to her, but it was pointless. She had changed, and I didn’t even recognize her. Three months in DC, and this? Then it became a case of her friends warning her to stay away from me. But by then I had thrown in the towel. I was harmless. So, I finally just chose to ignore her, to not even try anymore. A great two-year relationship was done. I couldn’t wait for the school year to end, and I didn’t even stick around from the graduation ceremony. I wanted out.
That summer, I worked on a resort island. I painted houses and lived in my VW camper bus: a new venue for a bender. I tried to push Liz from my mind, but she always crept into my thoughts. I drank with the best of drunken sailors, and that helped some, I guess. I had no way to cope, no tools, no one to turn to. I was going to have to ride this out on my own. All along, what I couldn’t reconcile was why she dumped me. For him? There was no comparison. And then to see the changes in her: It was like she had been brainwashed. Maybe time would help me; meanwhile, the hours and minutes were pretty raw to deal with. Then after three or four months, when the summer tourists had gone back home, I got a call from Liz in mid-October, at about the time the winds from the northeast began to ruffle the skin of the Atlantic. She wanted to see me. She had broken it off with Trip, she said. She had been seeing a psychiatrist. She wanted to get together again. Basically, she wanted to have her cake and eat it, too. Over the months, I had imagined this moment, imagined what it would be like to hear from her again. And I had also imagined the different replies I would give her. And one of the replies I had imagined came out, beyond my control, like I was a witness to it: 'I don’t think that’s a good idea.' It was like a spell had been broken. With that, I was on my way to moving on.