I am the one I hate

I thought about this from day one. How I was going to handle our first visit.

I had just gotten divorced. Literally the day after court, Delores had sent me an email, it was a thursday, by friday morning we were going to see each other for the first time in 17 years.... here's that email:

Hi (OG),
You doing OK? I saw the news on your profile. Are congratulations in order, or is it not that kind of week? Anyway, I just wanted you to know I think of you fondly often and yeah, even now, over 15 years later, I sometimes miss you. Wish I could see you and give you a hug right now.

Do you still see (BFF)? Last I heard from him he said you lived near each other.

Cool beans.
Write me back, tell me what's up. Where are you living, where are you working? You have cute kids! I have 1. He's cute, too. :)

This was my response:

Considering the hell I've been through since may, I think congratulations are appropriate. BFF moved to NC a few years ago but I see him when he comes up on biz trips. I am living in (New Town) until the house sells, which I will miss as it was the "last house we would buy" and I put a lot of time and money into it. I will also miss being neighbors with (NFL Player). He lives behind me. Life is different when you watch Monday night football with an actual participant. I am working (or supposed to be) for (current company), third largest in the nation. I had spent a few years at (competitor), but that was automatonic at best. Now at least I'm a person.

Our first conversation in a decade....we had bumped into each other 10 years previously and chatted briefly, but that was it.
She was coming over on Sunday.

I freaked out...OMG, OMG, OMG...I'm gonna see her. I was SOOOOO excited...and a little nervous.....I sent a text to my friend who I have had my entire life, he knew her and had bugged me for YEARS to get back in touch with her. All I sent to him was "of all the women through the years, who was the one that got away?"

Her name came back

She came over and it was like a tidal wave hit me...but I was reserved at first and for a very good reason.

I was about to do to someone else, what had happened to me. and in many ways, worse.

In our email exchanges I could detect that something was wrong and when we started talking that day face to face, a LOT of information came out. I remember standing in the hallway, near the foyer when we were checking on her son (he was 14 months at the time and had to be there..longer story). I looked at her and said "You need to make a decision about what you want before you do to him (DH, her husband) what happened to me"

(fucking "Total Eclipse Of the Heart" is now playing...fuck, fuck, fuck....D will get it)

"What happened to you?"

My wife decided that our anniversary was the day that she should tell me that she did not know if I was the father of our second child, he was a month old at the time. Not " He is, but I didn't", or "He's not", but a flat out "I DON'T KNOW". Not an easy one to take, especially over a three day weekend. He ended up being mine, and she was determined to get divorced and it happened. May I was delivered the news, June we filed, November we were in court. That guy is now her boyfriend.

This is why I was so reserved with Delores. I had an entire speach prepared how I wasn't going to be "that guy". I forgot it the moment I saw her. She hadn't changed a bit. Not a bit. It was obvious that she felt the same way.

So a very intense affair started, just as emotional as it was physical, and it carried on for four months.
And now I sit here heartbroken and waiting.

I AM the guy I have hated for a year.