A Page Of Me: Crossing The Cheating Line Part 3

**This is a recount of a true story between me and Melissa (not the real name)**

"I dream that you cheated on me in front of my eyes" ~ That was what Melissa told me a few months after our first year anniversary. But to her, that statement was just a dream. For me, it was already my nightmare.
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Ah, to be honest, this blog wasn't even written before "A Page Of Me: Crossing The Cheating Line Part 2" was released. Simply because I needed a short break before thinking and evaluating what to say or not to say in this final part. But I guess things took a turn when somebody I trusted apparently contacted Melissa before "A Page Of Me: Crossing The Cheating Line Part 2" was released. Melissa told that person that she allegedly did not cheat at all. So I guess based on her claims, all these stories that I have written are essentially fictional tales just like Dora the Explora or My Little Pony.

This makes "A Page Of Me: Crossing The Cheating Line Part 3" an even more interesting story to tell because of such a statement made by Melissa. Not that it wasn't already gonna be more interesting to begin with. I could even make this part more interesting by putting up evidences of the cheating that she so claimed to have not done. After all, I love spilling some tea here and there. But for the sake of her own privacy, I will not do it. I WOULD NOT make statements, stories and claims that I cannot back up myself. So in other words, what I write here is 100% based on a true story.

And yes, Melissa, this is the continuation of your "tape". This is the final edition and possibly the one that Melissa and everyone would want to hear the most. So sit back and relax, because the story will continue, right now...

I remembered the time Melissa did her braces. I was there in the room with her, bright and early in the morning. It was also just a few days after we spent our first time celebrating the New Year together. Everything seemed promising, but little did I know that the countdown to our breakup was already beginning.

On the day she did her braces, she gave me her belongings to hold. This included her bag, her wallet and her phone. Ah yes, the phone that told me those cheating stories back in "A Page Of Me: Crossing The Cheating Line Part 2". But while Melissa placed her trust in me with those belongings, she failed to trust her side flings to stay silent during that time frame of her doing her braces. This is perhaps the biggest mistake she could ever make, because while I was minding my own business and doing my own thing, "Celloboy" on the other hand, wasn't.

Melissa, you remember "Celloboy" right? With a nickname like that, he could be musically inclined. But unfortunately, he was only inclined in having a great sexy time with Melissa. As Melissa was doing her braces, which took some time by the way, a LINE id by the name of "Celloboy" sent a message to Melissa's phone. Since I was taking care of her phone and since his message popped up on the locked screen, perhaps reading the content of the message wasn't a bad idea. After all, it could have been an emergency message from her friends or family. Sadly, it was a different kind of "f"; not friend, not family, but a fling to f**k. And the message went something like this:

"You still wanna have sex?"

Hmm... pretty strange for someone to be messaging you this after being in a relationship for over one and a half years. Especially if that someone isn't even your boyfriend. So questions started to run circles around my head. Why? Who? Of all the questions that I asked myself, there was one question which stood head and shoulders above the rest.

"Could there be something more than this message?"

And that was all I needed to start probing further. Perhaps sometimes, we tell ourselves that the less we know the better. But I needed answers. And knowing Melissa, she would never give those to me if I were to confront her about the text message. She would deny, like she always have been. So the hunt for the answers were on. Scrolling through "Celloboy" texts with Melissa were endless. It was as if they were the ones in the one and a half year relationship. But this is where things got interesting.

It turned out that they were sexting with each other at some point. And these included pictures going to and fro from each other, as if there wasn't a care in the world. And amidst those lewd text messages lie a particular conversation. It was "Celloboy" asking Melissa if she was in a relationship at that point in time. And guess what Melissa said?

"I am in a relationship, but he is busy at the moment."

Busy eh? I do admit that I was having my first year in university and things were tough to get used to. At the same time, I've had a total of 5 hall CCAs because I wanted to experience the "hall life". Yet, I still managed to squeeze some time to spend a reasonable three to four days with Melissa. So if you readers were to ask me if I was neglecting her, my answer would be no. Despite my hectic schedule, I still made an effort to meet up with her. At the same time, Melissa did not EVER make an effort to discuss the issue with me like how a normal couple should. Instead, she thought that perhaps screwing around with a guy named "Celloboy" was the better option.

To make matters worse, they actually agreed to have sex in a music room in her polytechnic. And you really cannot make up all these stories up even if you wanted to. I may be a creative and imaginative person, but this story cannot be made up. In the end, to Melissa's credit, she did not meet with "Celloboy" for their pre-agreed sex, or at least that's what I managed to deduce in the end based on how the chats went. Which was kinda why "Celloboy" ended up saying this on the day Melissa did her braces:

"You still wanna have sex?"

But regardless of whether she eventually did it or not, it is still cheating nonetheless. If she thought I  was too busy and needed to spend more time with her, she could've just told me about it. I didn't know that when one is feeling bored and free, they immediately find strangers online to talk and have sex with while in a committed relationship, or in this case, sexting. Regardless, she took the easy way out and cheated.

I guess it was after this incident that we were just on borrowed time. We needed to either settle this issue once and for all and perhaps agree to disagree with issues, but at the same time, lay everything out on the table without hiding. If the issues were not settled quickly, the final implosion would have been just around the corner within months. So when Valentine's day was approaching, I tried to talk to Melissa about the situation of not cheating and the guys that were clearly trying to hit on her. I gave her another chance to confess whatever she has done to me prior to the talk. But not only did she deny ever cheating, she didn't like the fact that we were talking about it. That's totally Melissa for you in a nutshell. In the end, we just swept everything under the carpet and pretended everything was fine, even though it clearly wasn't. The "Celloboy" incident was never mentioned again and that was the last Valentines I would ever spend with Melissa.

I was approaching the end of my Year 1 Semester 2 finals three months later. Not gonna lie, I was actually looking forward to spend the three months of holidays with Melissa. It was something that I was looking forward to for a really long time. Finally, a break from all these hectic studying and CCAs. Just a couple of days before the final paper, everything was going so well with me and Melissa. Sometimes it would go too well that I started to forget that the cheating even happened. But all that changed after my final paper.

Out of nowhere, Melissa started to get really angsty, jumpy and fouled-mouth. Little things in conversations that were not argument worthy ended up in arguments. Things eventually became sour a couple of days later when me and Melissa met at Macs near her workplace. Throughout the entire meal, she remained absolutely silent and unresponsive while I was there, helpless and wondering what could have happened. No dates went without talking to each other so this was new to me. I, of course, suspected something was truly amiss and confronted her about it. Melissa being Melissa, refused to say anything.

Day by day, I was kept in the dark about what happened to Melissa. She continued to remain cold and unresponsive. And it wasn't long before our second anniversary was coming along. I remembered preparing a special gift for Melissa and each and every single night, I was being tormented at what was in Melissa's mind all these while. Eventually, about a few weeks later, she became better again. This time, she got excited about something else. What could it be?

Melissa was excited about a photo shoot that she was gonna take part in. Sounds pretty okay, right? Here's the catch. The photo shoot was a personal photo shoot and that she was the model. So who was the photographer? It was apparently a guy that I had never ever heard of. They weren't of the same school or of the same event. Yet, I could see the excitement in Melissa's face every time she mentioned about the photo shoot. But as Black Mirror once said:

"You know when you suspect something, it's always better when it turns out to be true."

If he was just a photographer, that was all there was to it right? Hmm... Perhaps for one, she was only happy when we talked about her photography and less of the anniversary that was approaching. And two, I eventually found out that Melissa did use a secret application to find other guys to talk to online and my guess is that she inevitably found that photographer. Not that she would tell me where she actually knew him right?

The tragic end came a little after our anniversary. While I gave her my best in terms of handmade gifts and plannings for our celebration, all she did was... yes, nothing. I wasn't angry and upset that she gave me nothing, but the lack of thought and effort that came along with it. And yet, strange messages were still pouring in onto Melissa's phone during dates and she would always try to hide them from me. But I knew better. Eventually, I broke and just confronted Melissa with overwhelming evidence about "Celloboy", about the photographer and the constant LINE messages she would receive. She would inevitably send me a screenshot of her LINE that showed many new guys texting her, which proved my discovery of her using a secret application to find other guys online. I suggested to have a "one-month break" for us to cool-off, without seeing anyone of the opposite gender and just hope to rediscover our spark.

Melissa agreed to the "one-month break" and we promised to not see other people during that time. However, in the third week, my friend took a screenshot of Melissa's Instagram story, which she blocked from me, showing me evidence of her yet again hanging out with the guy she met online. And that was it. Game over.

So that's the end of what was a roller coaster two-year relationship. There were many highs and even more lows, but ultimately, I always believed that everything happens for a reason and in the end, we were just never meant to be. And while Melissa said that I was an "emotional baggage" for not being able to let go of my "bad past", the person responsible for even creating that load of "emotional baggage" was ultimately Melissa. But of course, Melissa never once saw what she did and instead pitted the "emotional baggage" to me because it made her feel like she was never at fault for anything. Then again, while I was her so called "emotional baggage", what she ultimately chose in the end was a guy with a huge "monetary baggage". She wanted to be rich and pampered so badly that she wanted and probably did, sold her body and soul to a rich person. Yes, she finished what she started all along; to land herself with a rich guy who could buy for her 400 dollars worth of color pencils, free car rides and Spotify premium.

I'm glad that she is happy now. I'm glad that I am happy to have blocked her out of my life. That wasn't an immature move. That was the right move that I should've done all along. It took me a full one and a half years for me to finally be able to move on from her overbearing yet invisible clutches, but it took her just days to move on. And now, I am finally able to close the chapter of "A Page Of Me: Crossing The Cheating Line". A fitting end, if you were to ask me.

Again, I refuse to upload any screenshots or any files to prove that these stories are true, simply because I wish to protect the identities of the people around Melissa. The evidence that I have will CLEARLY be sufficient to justify the stories that I've made, but it should not be used as a purpose for personal attacks. Hence, I choose to omit the use of evidences in my blog post. So you readers can make your own decision on whether to believe me or not, or you readers could believe in Melissa and her claims of never cheating before.

Either way, I've said my piece and possibly will never say anything more after this. And for the last time, cheating is never okay, no matter what the circumstances are. Whether you think that it's just emotional cheating, so it should be okay, or if cheating should only be used for revenge. It doesn't make the act right at all. Always remember that two wrongs don't make it a right. End the relationship if it is not going the right direction. No one gains anything from cheating; other than the pain of your deed slowly eating up every ounce of conscience, that is if you actually had any to begin with.

Would Melissa actually come to realize her mistake one day? Possibly yes, she might but as of this moment, she is still in denial of her own mistakes and still trying to convince herself that everything she did in the past wasn't cheating. But it was all true, and that's what cheating does to you; you hide that fact to your very grave because admitting your cheating deeds will just show that you were indeed doing the other person an injustice. For all the cheaters out there, you can be different from Melissa and firstly, admit to yourself that you were once cheating and you gotta stop. There is no point in building up a relationship when there are mistrust and suspicions every day and at every moment.

I've learnt it the hard way, from both Mindy and Melissa. I don't wish this on my worst enemy because the emotional pain I had to go through certainly made me feel a sense of hopelessness and isolation. Whatever problems you might be facing, always communicate with your partner to get any misunderstandings out of the way instead of taking the wrong road of cheating.

Live life simply, love each other wholeheartedly, but always do the right thing.