To care or not to care

"Meg what is wrong? You are freaking me out. What are you sorry for?," I said to her. I wanted to know what was wrong and at the same time I was afraid of what she might say.

"A. i'm sorry, i'm so sorry," she said as she sobbed. She kept repeating that over and over again. I finally grabbed her shoulders and yelled out her name which appeared to snap her back into reality.

"I didn't mean it, I didn't mean for it to happen again."

"Meg, what the hell are you talking about?"

"Pat!," she yelled. "I slept with him!"

Before Aaron. Before J. There was Pat. Pat had been my boyfriend from my sophomore year of high school to my junior year of college. We had broken up because he had cheated. Meg had told me about the cheating and when I confronted him he admitted it. He would not tell me the name of the girl, but had sworn up and down that she meant nothing and that it was over with him. I could not handle the cheating. I was devastated and I had turned to Meg and J. for comfort.

Meg had gone on to say she had run into Pat at a bar tonight and had ended up going home with him. She also admitted that she had been the other girl. It was her who had revealed the cheating to me, and now I know she knew only because she had been the other girl. I had never questioned how it was she knew. I had always figured that she was only looking out for me. Hearing her tell me all this tonight felt like a knife going through my back. Who was this girl sitting before me? Who was this girl I had called my best friend for so many years?

I did not cry and I did not get mad and yell at her. I simply calmly asked her to leave. When I finally walked into the bedroom Aaron was already asleep. I changed into my PJ's and crawled under the covers.

"Is everything OK babe?." he asked me half-asleep.

"I don't know who she is anymore Aaron. I don't know who she is," I said to him as tears started flowing. I cried silently as he held me and I eventually fell asleep.