Last year, when I officially started working on my memoir, I was in a relationship that was as codependent as the one that I wanted to write about. My partner and I were experiencing hardship and it took a heavy toll on our communication. I felt uneasy moving through the world knowing that she and I weren’t on great terms. I started to obsess over what was going on because I didn’t have answers and when I tried to force them out of her, my anxiety grew exponentially.

My mother was in town and we had agreed that I would spend the night with her in her hotel. That night I broke down in front of her and confessed everything that was going on in my relationship. I unloaded all of the emotions that I wasn’t able to get across to my partner. I cried uncontrollably and felt weak because of it.

“Oh honey,” Mom said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You’re doing it,” I said.

But I could tell that she still wanted to help. She wanted to fix things so that I wouldn’t have to feel sad, even though feeling my emotions was exactly what I needed.

“You shouldn’t hold it in like that,” she said. “My therapist told me that it’s important to be loud when we cry or else we create stress in our chests. Really try to let it all out.”

When she said that, my first thought was, “Really? You’re going to tell your sobbing child that he’s not crying properly?”

What followed was a deeper sadness, but one that I was able to subdue because I no longer felt safe crying with her. I’d reopened a wound I’d been trying to let heal my whole life — one that reminded me that I’ve never had a safe place or person to fall back on. That for so long I have tried to change this about my family and never once succeeded.

I didn’t tell her any of this because I felt bad for her. I was the one who had opened up to her and asked for a shoulder to cry on, yet somehow I felt I needed to take care of her by shutting down my pain and my emotions. I also knew by then that this was her version of trying and that part of my anger stemmed from my inability to rely on myself.

So I took what I could get.

The next day I saw my girlfriend and told her what had happened. But she was just as emotionally unavailable as my mom and I were. The day was a Thursday and I remember that only because I had weekends off, which meant that after work tomorrow I would have two days to let things settle.

I left my girlfriend’s house and went to sleep that night thinking in terms of the end of the world and how I could help it come sooner — a catastrophic dance I like to play with myself before bed sometimes.

Friday at work came and went and nothing changed. I locked up and stood outside of my workplace wondering if any of it mattered anymore. I blamed everyone around me for how I was feeling and made up excuses for the things I was thinking about doing. I rationalized my way into the bar across the street from me and ordered a vodka tonic. I opened my notebook and wrote a poem about infidelity. I ordered a second vodka tonic and looked around the bar for distractions.

Nothing.

Two vodka tonics later I left the bar and walked to the next one over. I drank a shot of whiskey and a fifth vodka tonic.

I crossed the street and entered a third bar and now I wasn’t feeling any of the things I’d been feeling earlier in the day. My sadness was replaced with excitement — the kind I felt when I cheated on my girlfriend in high school.

I drank two beers and got a text message from a friend about a party at a co-op on campus. I took a Lyft there and talked the driver’s ear off about having voted for Donald Trump, even though I didn’t vote at all. I don’t recall why I chose to do that other than thinking it was funny at the time.

When I arrived on campus and met up with my friend, he took me to a corner store where we bought a six-pack of Shiner Bock. I carried it with me into the co-op.

Inside this den of college students were smaller groups of three or four all drinking different beers and smoking cigarettes. Whereas when I am sober I tend to avoid conversations with strangers, this time there was enough alcohol in my system that I turned into a social savant.

“Is that a joint?” I asked one kid. “I’ll trade you a beer for it.”

“It’s a cigarette.”

“That’ll kill me faster,” I said. “Even better.”

I approached a second group and asked them if they knew the band that was playing and why the hell it was taking so long for them to set up.

They mumbled something I pretended to listen to and then asked me for a beer.

“I have four left and three of those are my dinner, so you’ll have to share this one between the three of you.”

A tall blonde appeared next to me and laughed at what I said. “I’m Hannah,” she said.

“Nick,” I said. “Your friends here don’t seem to like me.”

“That’s because they don’t understand you.”

“¿Qué?”

“Mis amigos no te entienden,” she whispered in my ear. “They don’t speak Spanish.”

“How the hell do you understand me?”

She winked at me and said, “I’m cultured, honey.”

From there I abandoned my friend and stayed with Hannah for the rest of the party. We danced and made out and had the college fun I missed out on. She invited me back to her apartment under one condition: “You can’t spend the night.”

As soon as I undressed her and started to have sex with her, my twelve drinks bubbled up to my throat’s surface and forced me to stop.

I ran to her bathroom and vomited into her toilet. I sat at her toilet for twenty minutes in between vomits. I apologized for the embarrassment and she told me not to worry. “I took three Valiums before going to that party so I’m feeling pretty ill right now, too.”

She gave me her number and asked me to leave. “Will you text me?” she asked.

“I will,” I lied, because I wasn’t sure what the hell tomorrow would bring or if I’d even see a tomorrow.

Then I ordered a Lyft home and collapsed in my bed.

The morning after I reaped what I had sown. I felt guilt and shame and anger for what I had done. Even more so, I felt sad because I thought for sure that I had ruined yet another relationship, this one more meaningful than all the previous ones combined.

I started to think about solutions the wrong way. I thought of ways to avoid hurting my girlfriend by keeping the truth from her because I thought that being honest with her would be more hurtful than pretending I hadn’t cheated and continuing to be in a relationship with her.

I kept it to myself for one day.

Then another.

That turned into a week.

And by week two, I convinced myself that I could make it work.

Three months passed before I told her the truth. I even lied to her face once when she asked me straight up if I had cheated.

I did all of this thinking I was protecting her when really I was protecting myself. I didn’t want my relationship to end, but that boat had sailed already.

By the time I told her, the damage was done. We spent the next two months thinking we could fix it by addressing it head on, but other problems started to surface from it and her trust in me I had broken so blatantly that we weren’t able to make it work.

Not together, at least.

My third relationship ever ended because of the same reason my previous two had.

I was unable to deal with my emotions and thought, yet again, that escaping them was the answer.

But this time I didn’t end it on a lie or an absence of truth.

It ended with a hard truth.

And though I’m still ashamed of how I approached this whole mess, and the hurt that I put her through, I know that at least this time I managed to be honest with her.

Even if it took me three months.