I’m so freaking beat right now I can’t believe it. The top of my head just feels like it is going to implode any second.

The last two nights have been a complete shock. I can only imagine how devastating it must have been for Victor. Just listening to his story about him and Maya broke my heart — I definitely lost some faith in humanity that fateful Monday.

I was out with Nelson having dinner with our Dutch friend one last night before she had to leave for home. Earlier in the day, I had received news from a close friend of Victor that he has gone through quite an ordeal recently and has loss a lot of weight. She recommended I pay him a surprise visit with high caloric food in tow, because Victor was a man who wouldn’t let his friends worry about him.

With that terrible news at the back of my mind the whole time, I sat through my last dinner in a while with our Dutch friend. Then I told Nelson, who’s also a buddy of Victor. That fateful night, we decided to pack some carbo-rich roti prata and headed straight to his house.

We had no plans. In the car, we discussed what we’d do when we arrived. A man who has just gone through a break up isn’t going to want any advice from two happily attached guys. We agreed that the only thing he needed was listening ears—and that was the plan. At least until we arrived.

Nelson rang up Victor and told him to open the gate to his loft as we were outside and ready to help him feel better, regardless of whether he was ready (we discussed that there’s probably no such thing as “the best time” for something like this).

As I pulled up to his garage, Nelson let out a hysterical laughter. My mind just wondered, why would he laugh at a time like this?

It turns out that we were just in time, by sheer chance, to see some things go up in flames. Victor was about to engage in pyro-therapy—more accurately described as burning things of sentimental value in order to put the past behind oneself. And yes, I made up that word. (Not so bad for a guy who haven’t been able to think of anything else but the tragedy of the story he was about to tell us.)

He was indeed skinny to the bones. I remember thinking: this is the man who once did plenty of floorball and carried weights at the gym three times a week. What the hell happened?

With the help of his concerned brother-in-law, he began to sieve through his memento drawer for Maya’s stuff: gifts, letters, and the likes. Whilst at it, Victor abruptly let out bursts of information of what had transpired over the past few months while he was studying abroad.

“She cheated on me. More than once. Emotionally and sexually.

And she lied about it for more than two years.

Oh, and I got a STD from her.”

Oh my god.

That was the beginning of this nightmare. I knew Maya and thought she was swell. Great personality, has a sense of humour, and surely was in love with Victor. How could she have possibly done all those things—those utterly despicable, horrendous acts of infidelity, lust, and disrespect?

Nelson and I had to swallow all that in the span of half a minute as Victor began his therapy. The first item was their first photo together as a couple. Moments later, it was up in flames.

He must have went through 30 different items altogether and took his time to remember the history of each of them and what they meant to him, chanting aloud to us.

“It really breaks my heart to look at this…”

That’s what he kept saying to us—whether he was referring to the item or the fact that it was becoming a pile of ash, I wasn’t sure.

I could, however, almost feel his pain through my veins just by standing beside my broken friend. But I had no words, and I suspected none could ever make him feel better in that situation. Nelson, on the other hand, just kept cursing at Maya for being a complete bitch. I silently concurred.

The silver lining in this story is that the STD he was infected with was curable. And according to him, the fact that there were snippets of real love in the relationship was a blessing, too.

Three of us sat in his room while he cleaned himself up in the bathroom, where he began to tell us the painful details of how he found out, what it was like when he found it overseas, and everything else. It was excruciating to listen to, and I wanted to cry. But I held it in well because I asked myself what sadness Victor must have been going through, and he seems to be keeping the tap to his tear ducts tightly sealed.

Then, we found out that he took some pills.

Earlier in the day, he had decided that he required professional help. It was proving too difficult to cope with his sorrows alone. Victor’s psychiatrist gave him four different meds to calm his nerves, help him sleep, and for treating emergency panic attacks. He also asked Victor to cease contact with Maya and catch up on rest.

That night, he had his worst panic attack, something he told me the next day when I met him at 11pm, on 31st December 2013.

I went over to his parents’ mansion to pick him up. We’d then go to the city centre to countdown and see the fireworks. It took a little coersion to get him to agree to leave home (and his association of it with safety from the utterly cruel and dangerous world outside), but he agreed to go.

We hadn’t managed to get front row seats to watch the pyrotechnic display, but we managed. Parked by the roadside and sitting on the curb, we witnessed a magnificent show of fire and glitter — something that ought to inspire one to look forward to the new year.

But it didn’t erase the fact that she did what she did. Her unrepentant unfaithfulness did not magically dissolve. No fire was strong enough to burn away painful memories. Not a homemade cauldron of fire, not even explosive pyrotechnics.

Victor sat with his head bent over, supported by his thin arms. He began to regurgitate parts of his dinner, but because he had a poorly developed gag reflex, most of it remained at the tip of his throat.

The pills made him nauseated, he said, along with the thought of how she had slept with several men, contracted a STD, and infected him.

That was an expected reaction to the mixed feelings he must have had, of her audacity and shamelessness and disgust.

He still has many questions that he’d like to get to the bottom of, quite understandably. He wanted to hear it all from the horse’s mouth. Did she cheat on five or ten guys? How many of them did she have sex with? When did she start lying? Had she ever loved him?

In my mind, enough was enough. The truths—if they really are what they’re supposed to be—were already eating my friend inside-out. What good could possibly come from knowing more of these maggots of the heart?

Or could I be wrong? Perhaps knowing would provide closure, and only then can the process of recovery begin. But if she had already lied for years, only god knows if her answers are truthful. In that sense, there’s no point at all in asking, right?

These are but some of the questions we contemplate when we get beaten in life, rotting from inside and crushed from the outside. From what I’ve seen, it goes into a downward spiral that is hard to break away from. Questions just lead to more questions when the heart is betrayed.

When the traffic policeman finally came to shoo us away at about 12:20 am, Victor got on his feet and trudged to the car. I drove him home and when we arrived, he said to me:

“Can I stay in your car a little longer?”

I couldn’t understand why my noisy Mini Cooper was considered a good place to rest, especially when we were just outside his house. But I had no heart to tell him to go home. So he stayed in the car curled up with the pink throw he borrowed from his mum before we left, and we just sat there for some time.

My mind continued to race through the pieces of information he had given me so far, and I tried valiantly to piece them together into something logical. While doing so, I stumbled into many questions, and one of my least favourite ones is, how do we know who we can trust?

In a world where a bubbly, funny, and (seemingly) faithful person is suddenly an unfaithful, lusty, deceitful monster, how do we know for sure that what you see is what you get?

I don’t have all the answers. And besides, my head is about to explode onto the screen.

But what I do know is the following:

1. The most pain that can be inflicted on a person is quite possibly those stemming from disappointment and betrayal.
2. Temptations are everywhere. We have to learn to be the better person and know when to say “no, this is crossing the line”.
3. If you can, don’t go into a relationship with anyone until you have a friend or group of friends you know you can rely on. Family help is great, but friends almost always understand you better.
4. Once a liar, always a liar. There’s no way to truly earn back lost trust.
5. Cheaters are not worth a second chance. Let someone else take up that challenge.
6. In times of excruciating emotional pain, don’t well it up. Open up to those closest to you, because letting it out is going to help you feel and get better.
7. Cheating is inhumane.