I wrapped my arms around my knees saying, “I just want you to be happy.” From my perch on the toilet seat, I watched her eyes dart to mine and then slide back to studying the swirling water in the bathtub. “If you are going to die in the next couple of years, I don’t want you to feel like you missed out on something just because you wanted to stay with me.”
“What if you fall in love with someone else? I don’t want you to stay just because you feel like you have to.”
I paused and thought about the last several months of our relationship. In many ways, it was a lot better than it used to be: we actually spent time together doing things we enjoyed, we looked forward to seeing each other, we tried to be good to each other. But at the same time, things were worse: I did feel trapped by the responsibility I felt for taking care of her, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to marry her (even if it was just a ceremony and not an official marriage because of her medical debt), and I didn’t feel appreciated, happy, or secure in our relationship.
Her illness didn’t erase the problems we had or make me forget how many times she had cheated and lied in the last 5 years. I had tried my best to forgive her and put my bitterness aside in order to be a good girlfriend, but those things still happened. I knew in my heart that she was still in love with one of the people she cheated on me with, and that she mentioned before that she wasn’t sure monogamy was for her. I thought my love for her would be enough, and that I was okay with all of those things as long as, at the end of the day, we had each other.
“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get there, but right now my main concern is taking care of you. I don’t have any plans for leaving you.” We both cried, and I hoped that my friendship with A would fall under the newly-formed ‘open relationship’ terms and I could rationalize away my guilt for starting to fall for her.