And now, on to part 2, the conclusion of this saga.
Although coffee with AD was good to clear my head, almost immediately after I came home from it my well-being was at risk and my ex was manipulating me. AD was back at school by the time the real drama had begun and I was forced to flee. I sent him a message several days later letting him know what happened, and he called me the next morning as my life was sent into complete and utter turmoil.
One morning several weeks after I left, I had a beautiful dream. I was getting married again. I wore a stunning, simple, shining dress of my choosing. It was a down-home wedding in Downtown LA. Everyone was in pure joy and delight, not thinking about how this marriage would never last, but how truly happy they were that I found love.
As the dream progressed, I kept wondering, Where is my groom? And as I followed the dream down into the rabbit hole, I found him: AD.
I woke up in a sweat and freaking out as the sun was streaming through the window. No, no, no, that’s not right. It has to be someone else. Go back to sleep, it’ll be someone else. But every time I went back to sleep, it was him. I needed new men to think about.
I began to launch in the dating world once more, but those of you who read The Boys’ stories know that I started to feel things for AD that I didn’t expect. Some people were convinced that I had romantic feelings for him long before my marriage ended, but that was simply not the case.
I traced the beginnings of trying to figure out our place in each other’s worlds to a cold night in December talking to a SK about P and her boyfriend, and the look that he gave her: That he loved her, he would always be there for her, and nothing could stop him. I remember beginning to cry. “Oh, SK,” I said. “I have been with A for seven years of my life and he has never once looked at me like that.”
At one point, I told AD this story. I never told him the ending: ”SK, A never looked at me like that. But someone else in my life has.” And I knew it was AD. It was him all along. And it scared me.
I was frightened for many reasons, including that I wasn’t sure this was a mutual attraction. I was going off of my own gut, and I didn’t trust it. The people who knew the two of us were convinced that we were both into each other. Some, however, would argue that he loved me like a sister. I had never sensed that, but I had only one priority — not to lose him. My life had been upended enough, so erring on the side of caution was ideal at the time.
I decided to keep plugging away at me and dating. He tried his best to be supportive, but I got the sense it was difficult. Things got trickier, though, when AD decided to move back home for a semester. I knew there was no hiding anymore for either of us. Although he would have to go back to the East Coast temporarily to finish school, he had decided to make his home here. I had always thought that he would find a nice girl and settle out there, but now all of a sudden we were back in the same fishbowl, except now I was completely available to the other fish.
I was dumb enough to think that we could go about our lives as we were, two friends who felt completely comfortable with one another. I thought he would be my friend as if everything was the same, and I could talk to him the way I talked to JB, which included full details of dating. But I had caused a seismic shift, and we weren’t sure of the other’s position. It caused stupid actions on both our parts – me becoming the alcoholic divorceeus (and him witnessing the incident), him getting uptight, angry and, at certain points, very jealous.
Eventually, this led to our first falling out and that crazy note of his. We didn’t speak for a month, including at an awkward dinner where AD and A were in the same room and I had to play “avoid the guys who are bugging you” game. (AD was more difficult, by the way — he kept trying to engage me, and I figured if he wanted space, I wasn’t going to talk to him.)
We ran into each other on the Strip and had that long talk, during which it seemed like he was trying to get me to admit I had feelings for him, but I blocked him at every turn. I wasn’t going to say it and risk losing him. At the end, it seemed like everything had repaired, particularly because included a tearful confession on his part: “Amira, I really care about you a lot.” AD is not like my ex — he’s a guy’s guy who doesn’t cry. After the talk and some serious hugging, we moved on to one of the happiest evenings I had since the divorce.
Then, about six weeks later, we had another falling out. For a while I wanted to meet AD for coffee. I wanted to talk to him about what was going on like two mature adults in person, tell him how I felt and see if he felt the same way. It seemed like for months he avoided being alone with me. After he bailed on me for the umpteenth time, I called him out via text, to which he texted me back that we weren’t a match.
Funny, I’ve seen the girls you date, and I’m better at matching people than you are, I thought. And you’ve never even taken me out, kissed me or slept with me! We’ve never even discussed having a relationship! How would you know that we’re not a match?
I told him I wanted to meet for coffee as friends, and he argued that as a friend, I didn’t do what he asked of me. He had asked so much of me during the divorce I’m shocked I could keep track of the only two I remembered: Don’t talk about my sex life to him and don’t insult my ex on Facebook.
Finally, I realized that I couldn’t do this anymore; it hurt too much. It was time to cut ties. This meant leaving one of the few men I had ever loved, the one who I swore when I divorced that, if he had disappeared from my life, my heart could barely go on. I thought to myself, This could be the last time I talk to this man. What does he need to know from me now? I wanted him to know the truth about how I felt about him, and that I wanted him to be happy.
“I don’t know what to say anymore,” I said to him via text. “My heart is broken. This is harder than going through the divorce. I wish you all the happiness in the world. I love you, goodbye.”
And with that, I blocked him on my Facebook and cut him out of my life. He tried to respond, but I wouldn’t let him. I was too wounded, and couldn’t deal with all my issues and his too. I cried in bed for two days – I didn’t even do that after the divorce.
We talked once after that on the phone, where I asked him to be friends again and to let go of the difficulties. He emphasized that we would now only be acquaintances and no longer friends and “our personalities weren’t a match.” My personality was the same, but it was an extreme version of myself and I was drama, he argued. Although my argument was that divorce creates difficulties, it was not one he was willing to hear. After all our history together, I didn’t understand or know what to say about being thrown away like this, but I respected his wishes to stay away.
But I knew then, as I know now, that I will always love him. Despite my best intentions and own issues, my heart is bonded to him forever. We created something that, for a while, shone like a star, but sadly burned away before it became something greater. Even if I go through the rest of my days without AD, he will always be a part of me, because I love him that much.
Last I heard he has a girlfriend, and I will move on too, because that’s what I do and have always done from heartbreak and disappointment. I should be used to it by now, but it doesn’t make it any easier in this case. After all, we do not forget the one that got away.
I woke up on a Saturday morning, two suitcases loaded and everything packed away. It had been 15 months since the divorce, and at long last, it was moving day. I was going to be living in the city of Los Angeles, after having been a Valley rat a good portion of my life. Now it would be official – my address would read Los Angeles, California.
Los Angeles is a city of vapid thinking and artificial people. And while dating has been difficult, there is another sector of my social life reboot that has been rather difficult, and that has been making female friends.