Meanwhile...

Remember for a moment that what you see here are snapshots, and elsewhere at long last email flows back and forth, the unexplained dam of silence finally broken.

Forgive me if i seem cruel because my words are clumsy, it is all new and I am in pain

-I would not blame you if you were, I would be if you had betrayed me

You didn't, you can't steal what you are welcome to take.

-You thought I would eventually betray you?

I thought I was clear, overseas is a long way, it is a long time, I granted you absolution, all I asked was that you be safe. I thought you knew that, all you had to do was ask me. The hurtful thing is that you were silent so long. I thought I had driven you away.

The true issue is, she needs to be gone longer than I can follow. and no one can build their life around an absence indefinitely. There is no accomodation, no arrangement, that can assauge that.

-How can you be so understanding?

I was in your shoes once. We all have stories. When you are in love with two people, each unaware of the other, and one is merely words on a screen, the outcome is inevitable. When you're young, you think there must be a way out that doesn't hurt someone. There isn't. The best you can do is offer a choice.

I wish you had understood you could have asked me. I wish.

Tell me a little about her.

-Her name is L, exactly like me.

Aha. Exactly like?

-They call us L and l.

Is she vanilla? Republican?

-No, and no. She's away in canada.

Canada? okay then. Small mercies accumulate. the future widens a hair's breadth, solidifies, ever so slightly.

-I let her think you were my ex. I wasn't truthful. I feel like I am in a bad soap opera.

You latinas and your soap operas. Tell her when she gets back from Canada, tell her what's happened, tell her why you're upset. If she loves you she will understand. You must do this.

-Yes.