Trust

Two years ago, on our first anniversary, my boyfriend and I took a trip to Hong Kong. One of the many souvenirs we brought home is a picture of us in Victoria Harbour printed on a ceramic plate.

That plate is now shattered on the floor of our unit.

A few days ago, I caught him cheating with the new nurse in his department. I had been in the laboratory for almost 2 weeks and I arrive home not expecting my boyfriend to be there as he had also been busy ever since this pandemic started. To my surprise, he was there. Sleeping soundly with another man in his arms. I was too tired to make a scene. I sat on the office chair at the corner of our bedroom. Looking at the mess they made, imagining how wild their night was while i was processing samples in a suit I cannot breathe in. I looked at him until he woke up.

And he did, he saw me, I saw him faintly smiling and about to greet me a good morning like he always does until he felt someone else lying with him in bed who is obviously isn’t me.

I’m not having it. I left. I have to sleep before things get shitty.

And now we’re here, he didn’t deny it and had been apologizing for the past hour. It was a moment of weakness for him, it meant nothing, he still loves me and will always choose me.

And I do too, but I want to make him understand. To make a point, that things will be different after this. A good change or a bad one, I do not know. I love him so much that I can easily let this go but I want to make things clear so we don’t have to go back to this everytime we fight.

And so I walked over to that ceramic plate, I looked at it. How happy we were. I handed it to him. I can see his tears welling up, confused with the gesture.

“Drop it.” i said calmly.

“Wha-“

“I said drop it, Please.”

He looked at it one last time. I hope he saw what I saw. Two guys who finally found each other, after a long series of rejection and failed relationships.

It broke into 4 pieces, with one piece smaller than the rest.

“Now, Fix it.” I asked, overwhelmed with my emotions.

He was surprised, but seemed to go along with it. Maybe he understood that he was not really in the position to complain.

We went dining table. Sitting opposite each other. He used the resin for one of his action figures. I just looked at him while recall our good memories. How I fell in love with him in the first place. In less that an hour, he was able to put it back together. I see a little proud smile on his face, thinking it’s already over.

He gave it to me. I looked at it once again. There’s a visible crack between us and coincidentally that one small piece had his face.

I let it go to shatter once more. I didn’t bother to look at him.
I went down on my knees to pick up the pieces, he lowered himself and tried to help but I refused. There’s around 20 pieces now. Some pieces were chipped.

“Can you stay there and watch like I did?” I asked

He nodded.

I used the remaining resin to put each piece together. He sat there in silence until I heard him sobbing. It took me more than 2 hours to put the pieces together and make my point. Our relationship will no longer be like the way it used to, but to make it work again…. It will take time.

I hugged him…and kissed him as warm as I could. And as I looked through his teary eyes.

“It will take time.”