My Girl Betty

As soon as Betty walked in, she kind of looked around for a second, saw someone, waved and went over to sit with him. As she sat down, she kissed him on the lips, and I am not talking about a "let's be friends kiss either".

He ordered her a drink, without asking her first, another indication that this wat not the first time they had been together. We watched from the other side of the bar, as they sat close, kissed and ran each other's hands over the other person body. It was clear Betty and my relationship was not what I thought it was.

Tim was the first to say anything. "I thought you said Betty was going to visit her mom this weekend and that is why she could not come out with us tonight." Thanks Captain Obvious. Yep, she was out with another guy. I took my flip phone out of my pocket and for the first time ever, thanked that I had the ability to take a few snapshots with a mobile phone, before I got up and left.

I told everyone I was leaving not if Betty saw them, not to tell her I had been there. As I walked out, the true level of how hard this hurt came, when I saw it was Tom Harris that she was sharing a table with. My nemesis from high school football.

I called my brother and talked about it, and he came over the next morning to help me change the locks on my door. I know it would have probably been easier to just ask Betty for my key back, but the locks were old anyway, and needed upgrading. I was in such a funk that day, that my brother called my sister and my father, and they convinced all me to take a week off and go to our family's cabin in the mountains. I was just the place I needed. In the middle of nowhere with no cell phone service.

I left that same afternoon. I only did one thing before I left. I taped an envelope to the door with a print of the picture from the bar in it. If Betty came home from her "mom's house" and went to see me she would understand why her key did not work.

It was peaceful at the cabin. Quiet. The cabin was located high on a mountain lake about 20 miles from the nearest market. As kids we called the place solitude. There was only one road in our out, and you had to drive 15 miles down it, before you got 1 bar on your 2G Cell phone.

At the lake, there was a small boat dock, with a small boat to fish from. There were endless miles of land to hike and hunt on. It was a place of solitude. The one problem with this is that with all the quiet, you really get to think about your problems if you have any.

During the week, I was able to reflect on my time in high school and college with Betty. I thought back to my time in the army special forces, and most importantly I thought about the last 5 months I had been trying to make a life with Betty.

It took me a week, but I finally figured out what was missing in my life. The relationship I was experiencing with Betty was not the same relationship I had during high school. It had evolved and changed. I was going to have to understand that.

What did come of my week was I had made a decision what I wanted to do with the next phased of my life, and the next phase of my life with Betty.

Since Betty and I were little kids, it was ordained that we would be together. We were best friends for many years. We dated in high school and tried to date during college. Everyone knew it and expected it.

I am sure that Betty did not really mean what she had said about my mom and her service, but she never apologized for what she said. That hurt me.

When I went off to war, we were in a place that I could not describe. Were we together? Were we apart? Were we just friends? I did not know. From her letters, I thought we were falling in love with each other all over again. A new beginning. At least, I was falling back in love with her. To be honest, I always felt from her letters, that she might have been keeping me at arm's length for some reason.

I had always assumed it was because she did not want to fall in love with me as a solider in case, she lost me. After last Friday night, I now questioned that. Her familiarity with Tom Harris in the bar was too familiar. There was something there. That something had to have started when I was in the Army. Maybe it had been going on for years. Maybe I was a backup plan? Maybe I was a second plan? Whatever it was, I was clearly not the only plan.

BY the time, I had driven off the mountain, I had asked myself those questions a thousand times. But in the end, I only needed to know the answer to one question. Would my life be better with Betty in it or out of it? Sure, she would make a loving wife, but would it only be with me? She had been keeping secrets from me since our fight in college? Was that the type of foundation I wanted to build a life on with her? Would the trust that had been broken with something as simple as a lie about going to her mom's house for the weekend ever be repaired? The simple answer was no.

As soon as I got into cell tower range, my phone went crazy. 300 text messages, and 25 phone calls. My inbox was full. Betty had been busy. I eventually stopped for a bite to eat and I pulled out my phone and started listening to them.

"Mike, I need to talk to you, please call me, it is not what it looks like. My key is not working, are you home and not answering me?

"Where are you Mike, why are you not calling me back?"

"Mike, I need to speak to you. It is imperative. You have the wrong idea. Tom and I are just old friends meeting up for a drink. My mom had to cancel with me and Tom called, so I grabbed a drink with him."

Etc. Etc. Etc.

They continued to go on. Eventually, she got angry with me, and said I was acting childish not answering her. Finally, she got to pleading to speak with me before the mailbox was full.

The SMSs started after that. I think her plan was to bombard me worse than we did the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan. It did not work for us and it was not going to work for her either.

Eventually I pulled into my driveway late Sunday afternoon, and unpacked and went to bed. Early the next morning, I heard pounding on my door before I got up. I guess Betty's answer to her problem was to stake out my house in the morning before I went to work and catch me before my coffee.

I opened the door and let her. She was already crying and flung herself at my neck for a hug and a kiss, which I promptly stopped. Sex was not going to fix our problem. If there was any way forward, it was going to be with honest communication.

As I made some coffee, she started telling me about how I had the wrong idea about Tom and her. "She could see how I could construe from the picture that was given to me that something was happening, but there was never anything there, no matter what that bitch Dottie said."

Apparently, Dottie had been in the bar that night too, had seen Betty and Betty had seen her too. I sat quietly and let Betty continue. She went on to tell me that "her mom had called and had to cancel at the last minute and she was just about to call me when her old friend Tom Harris called and wanted to get together for a drink. She originally told him no, but eventually she agreed to one drink, since it had been years since she had seen him and anyone who told me different was just plain lying. She met him for one drink at the bar immediately after work and then went home, where she tried to call me."

She was sure that Dottie has taken the picture and given it to me to break us up, so she could have me all to herself.

I sat there and continued to listen in silence. She started to beg and tell me I was the only one, there had never been anything between Tom and her, and she loved me and wanted us to get married and have children. I continued to say nothing, and listen quietly.

Eventually, she started to cry, and when that finally stopped, I talked.

I told her "It was me who had taken the picture not Dottie. I had posted it to my door on Saturday afternoon before I left for the cabin, 18 hours after she supposedly called me to tell me she was no longer going to her mom's."

The next answer to her question was, no, "I had not followed her, my team and I were there when she walked in". I told her "Dottie had never told me anything about her and Tom, and that I had not talked with Dottie in over 4 years." I did mention that I and my workmates, were very surprised at what she was wearing that night, and that if that is what she is wearing to work, then she must get a lot of looks from her co-workers.

I looked her straight in the eye's and said, "I could have forgiven you for what you said about my mom death all though years ago in college, if you had just said you were sorry for saying it. I could have probably come to grips that you had had a relationship with Tom Harris when I was serving in the Army given that we were not formally together, assuming you had talked to me about it. Even more so, if you had ended it when I returned from Afghanistan 5 months ago and we started up together."

"You were out on a date with another man, not just any man, you were out with Tom Harris. You know that Tom and I hated each other in high school, and yet you choose to go out with him. And you lied and hid it from me."

"Betty, there is no future for us. A relationship has to be built on trust, and you have shown that you are not trustful person. I was at the family cabin this week all alone, and during that time, I thought hard about us, and in the end, I asked myself one key question. Would my life be better with you in it, or not in it?"

"I can answer that question. This is goodbye."

I walked her to the door, as she pleaded and cried. After I closed it, I heard her crying on my front porch for the next 20 minutes, before she finally left.

She tried a few times after that to get us together. She tried coming to the house. She tried coming to my work. She tried talking to my family. They all knew what happened and they were nice to her, but they all made it clear, I had moved on.

That brings me too today. I am standing in the Elvis Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. Elvis is walking my bride down the aisle, so we can renew our 15-year wedding vows in front of our two beautiful children, Sarah and Billy.

It had taken me a few months to get my head screwed on straight and I eventually called Dottie and asked her if she was seeing anyone and would like to go on a date. She had been broken up with her fiancé for about 5 months, as a result of him cheating on her right before the wedding. We got together and met for a drink and became friends. From there, we eventually became lovers and later got married and had a son and a daughter.

During our time together, Dottie, told me a lot of about Betty and her past. Apparently, when she was in college, she remained faithful to me up until we had our big fight. Till that point, her nickname was the Chi O, Ice Queen. Many tried, but all failed at getting in her pants. The night we had our fight, she went out, got drunk, and woke up the next day in a fraternity house where she apparently lost her virginity in a well-known threesome. From there it went downhill. She gained quite a reputation as a party girl. Her grades suffered but she did graduate. However, without the nickname of ice queen.

She did have a falling out with some of her sisters at one point, because she was now known as a sure thing amongst fraternity row.

After she graduated and got a job in our home town, and she seemed to clean up her act. We had had our one-night fling before I went to Afghanistan, and it looked like she was turning her life around.

She remained faithful to me for about 2 years, before, Tom Harris called on her at work one day. He recognized her as my high school girlfriend and he took his chance to screw the girlfriend of the person he hated most in high school. It did take him about 6 months to get in her pants, but he finally did. She liked his company, because I was not there. He bragged about it to many people and that is how Dottie heard about it.

The problem was that she never did want to let Tom go, even after I returned from Afghanistan. He was like a drug to her. She had her chance. She lost it.

I asked Dottie why she had never told me all this before we were married. She said it was not her business to. We were casual friends in high school, and except for that one time in the bar before I shipped out where she gave me her phone number, we had never been close. It was not her responsibility to tell me my girlfriend kept questionable company.

In the end, Betty and Tom broke up. I guess she was not enough for him after we were no longer together. At least that is what I tell myself. I heard she got married and has a few kids and eventually divorced. I am not really sure. To tell you the truth, I really don't care.

I have a terrific wife. Two terrific children. A great job with wonderful friends.

Life is good.