The Forgiveable Journey Of The Cheated

29. A Question of Moving To the Other Side of the Train Tracks

Their conversation turns to flirtatious chit chat fuelled by resentment and the shared experience of being cheated on. 

Nothing compromising.

However, the fact that the conversation is between two of the people he had hurt most in his life would make Dan queasy. He doubted Charlotte still figured in his top three hurtees considering the alarming speed at which her supposedly broken heart managed to not only mend but to move on and secure an entirely new life situation. 

I have to admit that the conversation was a little lopsided with regard to Charlotte’s true nature, but it could only be expected given the context. She isn’t all bad. 

Liam thinks he is being revealing about Charlotte, but Eve had already drawn a pretty accurate portrait. It was a fine gesture from Liam to try to help Eve preserve her self-esteem by letting her know that Charlotte is quite persuasive to men, but is overall little desirable once you examine her actions according to a higher standard. He basically tells Eve that Charlotte is liberal with offers of sex, and has quite the curriculum vitae when it comes to cheating on partners. He did not mention here that he had once been one with whom she had cheated with. “She can love (meaning lust) one man and love the one standing next to him.”  This is obviously old news to Eve. 

She thinks back to how Dan had described Liam to be a jealous kind, who had once expressed to Dan the potential violence to come if one were to touch Charlotte. It made incredible sense that Liam would wish to deter men from touching her. Eve hoped that Liam had not been serious about the violence though. In truth, it was not men that Liam did not trust, for men are men (at least, Liam and Dan are men that are men), it was Charlotte he did not trust. But threats were useless because Charlotte liked being coveted and enjoyed the challenge of attracting men who had been previously warned and were willing to take on the risk of potential violence for her.

Unfortunately the collective memory of Liam’s warning was “if you touch Charlotte…”, because that seems like something more commonplace to say or hear. Actually, Liam had said “If you and Charlotte touch …” Reread those two sentence starters and ask yourself which one have you heard before, or perhaps you may have even said before. It is not uncommon for one’s brain to take something presented in an unexpected way and rearrange it to what you think was supposed to have been presented. Even Liam, later that same evening, cursed himself for having said the former phrase when he had meant to say the latter because his brain had also sought coherency and he had thus forgotten having said what he had truly meant to say. 

“I knew what she was like, but I still loved her…” Liam’s sense of failure creeps back into him. 

They are both grappling with their ignorance, their blindness, and their preconceived but abolished notions that an unfaithful partner could not happen to their own relationship, despite the statistics, their personal experience, and all the subtle and flagrant clues (including the earrings Eve found in the RAV). Eve tries to provide insight into what happened, to make sense of it all. She speaks of the reading she had done about plural loves. Physical love, intellectual love, romantic love, etc., that could exist simultaneously but not necessarily with a single person. The book on the topic advocated opening up relationships to fulfill multiple loves – the caveat being that all partners be willing and consenting. Eve’s conclusion, without considering how it may be interpreted by Liam is “I believe this to be true deep down inside of me, that it is possible to love two people at the same time.”

A wave of hope rushes over Liam. He believes this to be true of Eve and probably Dan, uncertain for himself and impossible for Charlotte (as her ability to truly love one man was questionable, let alone more than one). Liam correctly assumes that Eve is speaking about herself; that there is a possibility that she could love Liam in some way while still loving Dan. Eve, when rereading her messages, is somewhat surprised and embarrassed by this unintended glimpse into what is perhaps the real reason why she allows both the Stepford world and the parallel world to exist simultaneously.