The end of my relationship with Dora was a sudden affair that was years in the making. Though about a year prior we'd decided to give us another shot, nothing really changed, nothing got better. What precipitated that final moment was one night, and we were just lying bed, and just before trying to fall asleep, I tried a desperation move. We hadn't had sex in ages, and I asked her if she wanted to. And it wasn't that she just said 'no' - I had long been used to it - it was that as I was asking her I had put my arm in hers, and she grabbed it, pushed it away, then turned to me and told me how much my touch disgusted her, and that, I think, is something no-on ever prepares you for. I could understand the distance between us, I could understand how there was no love left between the two of us, I could even understand how sometimes - probably more of then than I care to admit - we just didn't like each other, but realizing that she felt disgusted by me, by something that she'd welcomed so many times before - my touch - was devastating. We spent the rest of that night talking, and by dawn it was official : we had broken up.
I saw at once that it was a relief for her - I always understood why it would be; and not only with her - with anyone else I could always understand why they'd not want to be with me. For it was a relief as well, but not right then. I was hurt, and hurting. Oh, I know she was too, but I think she dealt with it better than I did - at least for a while. But though we weren't a couple anymore, for a while at least I still lived there, I still slept in the same bed, and - strangely - sometimes we'd even shower together. There was never anything physical or sexual between us, but there seemed to be something that brought us slightly together. Nothing that could rekindle anything regarding the relationship - that was dead and gone - but at least we managed to stay friends, and every now and again we'd go out together for a drink or something - also something we had stopped doing years before. It was completely the right decision we had made about us not staying together, but I knew things couldn't remain as they were. Even before we broke up I already had the nagging feeling that there was someone in her life already - she often talked to me about this guy who worked with her, and how they talked all the time, and good she made her feel, and I'm not completely stupid. Sometime in the first quarter of 2003 I packed up and left, moving back to my grandmother's place. I still had a bunch of stuff there, stuff that would take me quite a while to completely pick up, and because I visited often to be with Ian, it would be a long while until I felt like I had truly left the house.
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