before :: after

i think back to freshman year in high school.

my childhood best friend had moved to the town over after seventh grade, and we'd been somewhat out of touch since then..

i remember my mother getting a phone call. maybe it was november? it was during football season, that much is certain.

apparently my friend's mother and her father was getting a divorce. cheating.

reading articles on 'no-fault divorce' for my women's studies class makes me think of this...

i wonder what conversations about the scenario my friend and i were excluded from...

the words exchanged over coffee and somewhat-stale entenman's cakes, the whole, "i had no idea what was happening," if that's what was said,

the "i don't know what to do" and what other language you use to talk about being cheated on by your husband of seventeen years.

in retrospect, i wish we would've listened to that discussion.

it would've been infinitely useful information is this age of infidelity and less-than-ideal circumstances.

nobody wants to get hurt.
nobody wants to think it can happen to them.

interesting how i'm handling this topic from an academic standpoint. hopefully that's the only standpoint i'll ever have to handle it from.