After reading all of this I just lay there in shock. I had a very physical reaction: I could actually feel stress hormones coursing through my body, especially in my stomach and in my quads. Sleep was out of the question. I called a mutual friend who—not surprisingly—already knew that Cheyenne and Marl were an item. Although she had lied to my face about Marl, she had given mutual friends permission to break the news to me. Ever the coward, she would do anything to avoid confrontation.

The next day I decided what I would do. I drafted an e-mail that began “I hate you and I never want to see you again” and I sent it to both Cheyenne and Marl. I refrained from calling Cheyenne words like “bitch” and “whore” but I was pretty brutal in telling her exactly how I felt. Also, now that I had the information I wanted, I needed Cheyenne to change her password. This seemed as good a way as any to let her know that.

I wish to God I had been strong enough to stay that angry.

A few days later I sent an e-mail to Cheyenne and Marl apologizing for the tone of the e-mail. It wasn’t that I wanted Cheyenne back. I didn’t even feel guilty about what I had said to her. I just imagined Cheyenne reading the e-mail, crying, and I felt sorry for her. I had thought of myself as her protector for so long and now she was in pain. I was still in shock and not used to having so many conflicting emotions.

Later, when I got a therapist, she told me that I shouldn’t have apologized and that I should have more ownership over my anger. Other than dating Cheyenne in the first place, my biggest regret is sending that apology.

Cheyenne wrote back a very brief e-mail. Her tone was condescending as if she was a therapist talking to a mental patient. She said that she was “worried about me” and that I was “isolating myself.” This completely ignores the fact that she had been working for months to alienate me from everyone I knew in the city.

She also expressed hurt that I violated her privacy and that this made her feel sick to her stomach. (This news actually makes me happy since I was sick my stomach for about two weeks.) She categorically refused to apologize for sleeping with Marl because “we were already broken up.”

The sheer stubbornness and arrogance of this statement is amazing. If she hadn’t cheated on me, she had certainly used me to cheat on Marl. Furthermore, from an ethical and health perspective she should definitely have told me she was fucking other guys. If she had, I would have stayed in a hotel in my lease had started and I certainly wouldn’t have slept with her. The fact that she doesn’t see anything wrong with what she did still amazes me. I can only assume she is using feminism to argue that she is a “liberated woman” and therefore free to hook-up with whoever she wants so long as she does not claim any sort of exclusive sexual relationship. (Mainstream culture refers to this practice as being a slut.)

End of Part 7. To be finished. Soon. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6