Chapter 21 — Aftermath
After those final text messages, the girl sent a couple more messages claiming to miss me or reminiscing about the good times we had. I never replied back. I know it was cold hearted to completely cut her off when she left, but I knew that if I gave her an inch she would try to take a mile. From what I hear, she ended up staying the full 6 months that her ticket was extended for. I have no clue where she stayed or what she did for money. I wouldn’t be surprised if she found some other unlucky soul to mooch off of. My mother never saw her again either. She jokes that she will slap her if she sees her on the streets but I think they will both just awkwardly walk past each other. My mother speculates that she changed gyms because she knew people were talking about this experience. My mother also told the girl’s ex-boyfriend what happened. I’m glad she did because the girl would always make it seem like he was her fallback plan if things didn’t shake out too well with me. The poor guy didn’t even know she was with me in my house and said that she had tried getting in touch with him lately. My mother also found out that this wasn’t the first time she moved in with a guy and refused to leave. She had another fling right before me that was about my age as well and claimed that she would use her advanced age and beauty to control him. I guess moving in with young, naive men is her M.O. Sometimes I wonder what happened to her and what she did while she was in America without me. More than anything I wonder how well she speaks English. Her whole claim to stay in America was the fact that she wanted to learn English and that she would never have this type of opportunity again since she is getting older. After all those claims and all that complaining, I want to know if she actually is able to speak English, or if she was just putting on that facade as an excuse to come to America. When people ask me why I stayed with her for so long, I tell them I was in control of the situation the entire time. That is not all true. I had to get to a breaking point before I could see who I was becoming was not the same person as who I was. I didn’t feel like I was changing for the better. I had to go back to being true to myself and not what someone else wanted me to be. By the time my friends and family wanted to sit me down and have an intervention, I was already fully aware of who I was becoming and I was taking control of the situation. Having others help me out with the girl was counter intuitive to me becoming a man. I had found myself in a situation that I alone needed to work through. That is exactly what I did. I was able to grow so strong from my experience with the girl. She taught me to be a mature young man that is for damn sure. She made me realize some of my own flaws. The girl was expecting a lot from me, some realistic and some unrealistic. I hold high expectations for myself, so it was nice to have someone who also held high expectations for me. That really pushed me to better myself and I am grateful that she did that for me. She helped make a man out of me. I wish there was more I could do to help the girl grow as a person too. I feel like if I met her about ten years back, we probably would have hit it off more. She probably would be just as beautiful and ambitious, but not as controlling and demanding. Did I love the girl? No I didn’t. I was attracted to her and I admired her, but I was not in love with her. Was she in love with me? She claimed to be at some point, but if she was in love with me, then she doesn’t know what love is.
