14. Who was the innocent and who the vulnerable
We had been chatting on the Chinese equivalent of Facebook’s Messenger, WeChat. I left a message. She didn’t answer. I sent her a text, also an email, no answer was forthcoming. I couldn’t believe my eyes! I worried. Finally, I became aware that Carol had in fact unfriended me!
I called Emma, her ‘sister,’.
“Don’t worry, Bruce, Carol is fine!”
Innocently, as if to cut me deeper, Emma sent me a short video of the three of us at home in my kitchen preparing the last meal we’d enjoyed together before their departure. Roast duck and potatoes.
Jilted! The dagger stabbed deep and deeper into me, twisting and turning as it penetrated through my sensitive flesh right down to stop with a dull thud at the bone. The pain was intense!
Earlier I had felt like a teenager, ‘in love for the very first time!’ Quoting the words from the pop love song released by Maywood in 1981. What an old fool I was, I should have realised, but No, I was always bewitched by Carol’s charms. Did I feel my self-esteem dropping?
My friends rallied around, giving me comfort and advice. I was unable to comprehend anything. All I could think about was Carol. Did I do something to hurt her? Could we have avoided the pain, why had she been so callous, cruelly discarding my feelings? No explanation was given. Questions kept rising to the surface, or was I slowly drowning in tears of self-pity?
No! I decided I would recover my balance.
I always had in the past and I will again in the future. But it left me with a puzzle. Who was the innocent and who the vulnerable, or were we both vulnerable and innocent?
