‘I just have a bad feeling about this.’

I did too. Not exactly a hunch, but years of experience telling me the outcome wouldn’t be as golden as it promised.

Still, we decided to do it. We accepted my mother’s offer to move into her house and share the bills. That would reduce our own monthly costs to about only 20% what they had been and after all those months of hunger and hardship, it felt almost like sweet salvation. Although I had already done a lot of the things that people consider to be ‘grown-up stuff’, like finding a partner and adopting a pet, this was the very first time I truly felt like an adult. This was the very first time I allowed money to rule my decision-making process. And, just like any ‘adult’, I wasn’t happy about it.

‘I know that any improvement right now seems like the best improvement’ Oliver continued, ‘but I can’t wash away the feeling something bad will happen. Do you understand?’

‘A lot. And I cannot say I am the most confident about it, either. Think about it, we’ll be able to afford Zeph’s food without problems.’

As we sat side by side on the couch with Zeph playing around us, we both knew that moving in with my mother would be a true nightmare. The arrangement wasn’t the best or us at all. All we would have was a suite and Zeph wasn’t allowed inside the house.

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.

*

We moved out of that apartment precisely one year after we had moved in. My sister was kind enough to keep our fridge with her, although I had to pay for it with an end table we’ve had since we were little and that nanna had given me when we moved.

And if I thought my life was spiralling down until then, that was nothing compared to the three months that followed until the year ended.

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.

*

Zeph really wasn’t used to be left alone. He barked and cried day and night right under our windows. At the same time my mother asked me almost on a daily basis to get rid of the dog, she wouldn’t allow me to have him in the room where he would be quieter. Also, she accused me of neglecting the dog for not giving it enough attention.

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.

*

Notice how all my mother’s interactions about Zeph were to me alone and not the pair of us? As polite as everybody was, nobody really made an effort to make Oliver feel at home, to make him feel as if he belonged there. He felt like an intruder 24/7 and that started having its own toll.

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.

*

Being good as I have always been at reading people’s reaction around me, I could start to feel him drifting away from me. Our internet connection wasn’t the best and it was shared for the whole house, meaning that people had to take turns to use it. So, if mom were on Netflix, he couldn’t play online games. If I were uploading videos to my unboxing channel, my grandmother couldn’t watch her classic movies on YouTube. To avoid extra headaches, we always opted for not using the internet.

We didn’t feel welcome around the house, so little things like staying on the living room couch watching a movie on a Friday night was now part of the past. All we had was our suite. Yes, it had a pc and a TV with a Blu-Ray player and a radio, but it was only a suite for two tired and frustrated adults to coexist.

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.

*

That also meant that work was far for both of us, but for Oliver it was even worse. Saturdays saw me working from eight to five and him four to ten. One particular Saturday towards the end of October would see him working until midnight. He was afraid to go back home alone at such late hour, so I volunteered to go meet him at work so he could at least have company.

Our financial situation was still pretty bad and that had been a Saturday I had gone without breakfast or lunch. I left work at five, as slowly as possible, because there’s only a number of things you can do while penniless at a fancy shopping mall for five hours. To give him more space somehow, because we were both desperate for space at that time, I decided to visit his store last, reducing the number of hours he’d know he was, again somehow, ‘in my company’.

You know when something happens and it feels as if the entire world disappeared and you’re alone at the centre of a circle? That’s how I felt when I finally entered his store and saw the look he couldn’t suppress.

That look on Oliver’s face. That look I had seen in so many other faces before.

That look that clearly told me they wished it were anybody else in the world who had walked through that door. Anybody else but me. I was far too familiar with that look. But I never thought I would have it from him. He was already my longest relationship; we had been together for a year and four months without a single fight. And there he was.

The same boy who told me he loved me over a text message after our first date. The same boy who had taken care of me so well even without me realising it. The same boy who had made me feel the most at peace in my whole life. The person who had made me feel I deserved to be loved and made sure I felt loved. That man now was making it clear, in the slightest of seconds, how disgusted he was at the sight of me.

My entire world fell apart.

But I still kept my word to make him company. I felt terribly sorry that I wasn’t anybody else at that time, but I felt the least I could do for someone so important to me was to go forward with my word and be there for him.

‘Since you’re here, can you take my card and buy me a sandwich? I’m so hungry. I hadn’t had time to leave so I’m starving. You know my password, right?’

He was the centre of that sentence. He was talking about himself and only himself. There was no space for me there. He made sure of it. He made sure of it seven times.

So, there I went, dizzy by hunger after more than twelve hours standing on an empty stomach, to buy him a sandwich according to the list I had in my hand. Call me stupid, dumb, idiot, proud, whatever you want, but I bought him his sandwich and handed him the bag with the wrap and his card inside. Watching him eat, though, would be too much for my strength, so I left saying ‘ring me if you need anything’.

He ended up leaving at ten as usual and I followed him home in total silence, feeling more lost than ever. It felt as if I had never had my heart broken before.

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.

*

We had this friend in common, Yves. Yves was an ex-boyfriend of another friend of Oliver’s. Nasty break-up; we offered him shoulders to cry on, we had him stay over, making movie marathons on the couch. Because I don’t drink and they both did, it was natural that Oliver would spend more time with Yves than I would. Once, coming home from work, Oliver, who was on vacation, had told me they were at a bar somewhat near our place, so I got off the bus to meet them.

I was already getting used to that new look on Oliver’s face whenever he saw me coming, but it still stung like the first time. Maybe for knowing us both, Yves pressed me to speak up my mind, because I was clearly unhappy.

‘It’s just… I can’t wash away this feeling that you’re happier whenever I’m not around, Oliver.’

‘That’s because I am.’

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.

*

The worst part was that I started to feel guilty for giving attention to other guys online. My loyalty to who I am was stronger than anything else and I felt horrible for allowing other men to be nice to me.

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.

*

My body started showing all the stress I was going through during that time. Although I almost never ate, that was probably the fattest I have ever been. One day I had a fever so high at work I asked my mom to come pick me up at work. When we arrived, she wanted to make me wait for us to go first to my sister’s house to drop her. I could barely stand or walk and I was in considerable pain. And they were calling me insensitive and selfish for begging them to pull over for a minute just so I could get off. We had to pass by our house to get to my sister’s. They wouldn’t budge. The best I could do was get down from the car across from our house, on the other side of the city’s main road and cross it by myself. I couldn’t stand. I could barely see. Few times in my life saw me as scared as that moment. But I was so ill, so ill, I took a pill and curled in bed. I passed out before my mother returned with the car.

Another day I found myself with five massive mouth ulcers cramped together on the back of my throat and my blood pressure at 190 over 120 (that’s like run-to-the-hospital-he’s-dying high). When I saw the numbers on the measurer, I did something I had never done before and never did again. I got the phone and called my father for help. All the while Oliver was asking ‘what’s going on?’ and I knew I didn’t have enough strength to be questioned. My father has some heart conditions, of all people, he’d probably be the only one to truly understand what I meant.

‘Dad, it’s me. Sorry to call. My blood pressure is 190 over 120.’

There were only two times in my whole life he really acted as my father. That was the second one. He didn’t take five minutes to arrive with some of his medicine. They were really hard to swallow because of the mouth ulcers, but I somehow managed. He demanded me to remain quiet and silent and stood by my side until I fell asleep.

I didn’t seek medical help. I couldn’t afford it. That was when I learnt how harmful stress can be. I was sick almost all the time.

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.

*

Oliver’s branch had won some kind of internal competition and they were going to a bohemian neighbourhood to celebrate selling more than the other branches. Don’t you just love capitalism? That would happen a few days, less than a week, after the blood pressure episode and Cher, please, let Oliver have a funny night and give me a break from him. I still had a fever. Quite bad, actually. I’m talking about a constant 40ºC (that’s a 104ºF if you don’t know reasonable measurements) and no medical aids, just some Tylenols and hopes for the best.

Around… six on a Sunday morning, a co-worker of Oliver’s calls me on my mobile phone. Apparently, someone had drugged him by pouring something in his drink and he was really not okay. I swallowed all my proud and asked my mother to help me.

The journey was punctuated by all kinds of stabs and complaints. Complaints about money spent on gas, about the trouble of going, about Zeph. I was still rather sick because of stress, but the price I had to pay for the favour was a whole extra new load.

When we arrived, he was in a true horrible state. The journey back home was even worse and felt even longer with his constant cries and depreciative words about himself. My mother was pissed and, to make matters even worse, I was too, for the very same reasons as she was. I didn’t drink. I didn’t go through that shit. Why was I going through it because of someone else? Someone who had recently decided anyone else would be a better sight than me?

When we got home, I undressed him to a pitiful sight of an abused man. Feverish as I still was, even though he didn’t know it or didn’t seem to care the day before, I shoved him under the shower and bathed him. I took him to bed, dressed him and put him in bed. All of it to constant cries of ‘I can do it myself’. Well, obviously not. I decided to take a shower myself and when I left and saw him fast asleep (or passed out, but breathing), I realised I didn’t want to be around him at that time, so I crossed the hallway and placed a mattress on my grandma’s bedroom.

I allowed myself the crime of reading nice words from another guy online and fell asleep. When Oliver woke up, I made sure he understood the gravity of everything and made him apologise to my mother and grandmother.

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.

*

Things kept getting far worse until the day he came from work and gloomily told me he had decided to break-up with me. I couldn’t say I was surprised, so I just nodded.

We made arrangements for him to move out the next morning. We divided some of the things and it was all set. When it was all said and done and it was bed time, he asked me to lay by his side so we could hug.

I got so far as to sit on the bed when this voice popped inside my head saying ‘you tried everything you could. Now there’s nothing you owe him’, so I turned to him and said:

‘Actually, no. You sleep here. I’ll sleep downstairs. We’ll see each other in the morning.’

The next day my father came to do the move. I was having breakfast and, as always, but for the last time, I made him the same I was having. I went outside, gave him the two sandwiches and just said good-bye. No hug, no handshake, no good-bye kiss.

But our situation was too hard to bear anymore.