He's been seeing someone else.

I begin tonight's entry with a sentence as overused as it is completely incapable of conveying the betrayal, the fury, the fist-in-the-heart of discovering these words apply to you.

His name is Sven. He is (literally) a model - an underwear model, no less - and one of Ex's tango instructors. Suddenly so much of what baffled me before now makes sense. Ex insisted there were better matches "out there" for both of us, but he neglected to mention that his "better match" already had a name, a Facebook profile, and a portfolio of semi-nude photographs showcasing the latest line of briefs. Ex said he wanted someone more like him, and Sven is both a model and a dancer. (Ex may not be a model, but he's been "working out like crazy" to look like one - perhaps one who models underwear?) Ex said he wanted romance, sex, love-letters - all the hallmarks of the early, romantic phase of a relationship. What he didn't say was that Sven and he are already immersed in this stage or that their flirtation blossomed into a full-fledged romance within days (hours?) of our breakup.

I never met Sven, but I know about him from Ex, who showed me some of Sven's semi-nude photos on Facebook. Simply put, Sven is one of the most stunningly attractive men I have ever seen. Judging from the e-mails I dug up tonight on Ex's computer, he is also sweet, endearingly insecure, and completely in love with my ex-boyfriend. His current Facebook status reads, "I have the HOTTEST boyfriend in the world!"

How did I manage to gain access to Ex's e-mails, you ask? I installed spyware on his computer. I know I shouldn't have done this, and I can offer no justification other than I'd listened to Ex's reasons for why we were breaking up and couldn't shake the feeling that he was leaving something out. I'd asked several times if he'd been seeing someone else. Not only did he say he hadn't, but he insisted that he was "off the market," that he planned to dedicate the next few months to solitary living and self-exploration. (Ex had been in one relationship after another since he was 17. He reminded me of this and said it was finally time for him to be by himself.) One day when I was particularly confused and distraught, I said it would have been easier to understand his reasons if he'd been seeing someone else. Furrowing his brow, he asked, "Really?" I questioned him again: Are you seeing someone? He sighed. "Part of me wishes I were if I'd known it would have made this easier for you to understand."

To Ex's credit, I'm certain that part of the reason he lied was to protect me. He knows I'm insecure about my body, so he must have known that announcing his mutual infatuation with an underwear model would have killed me. And yes, it is killing me, and yes, I have never felt more physically inadequate in all my life. But I needed to know. After 12 years, I feel I had the right to know. Ex wanted to remain friends ("best friends," he said) and continue our professional relationship. He lied to me. Repeatedly. I even defended him when For Real insisted that he must have been having an affair. True, Ex did not have sex with Sven until after the breakup (at least this is what I gleaned from the e-mails). But the e-flirtations date back to the beginning of December, and I wouldn't be surprised if a spontaneous act of physical intimacy between Sven and Ex precipitated the breakup. But to quote another overused statement: best friends do not lie to each other. How long would Ex have lied to me? How could we learn to trust each other as friends if he lied about something as important as the reason for our breakup?

For the last 22 days I've been consciously working to heal. On Day 13 I wrote about Ex's transformation and lamented the loss of the man I loved. I knew I was far from being completely healed, but I'd reached what I thought was an important breakthrough. From that day forward, I began recovering my sense of humor and (grudgingly) accepting my loss. Essentially, I'd created a narrative. Ex had changed, his former self could not be raised from the dead, and I had no choice but to move on. In actuality, Ex's former self is alive and well, just not with me. The self I thought dead has been regaling Sven with love letters and poems and confessions of future hopes and dreams, just as Ex once regaled me. I still have no choice but to move on, but my narrative is now unraveled like so much yarn on the floor, and I feel as though I'm forced to begin my healing all over again.

More than the lying itself, what hurts so much is this sudden loss of control over my narrative. I had no control over the breakup; I did, however, have control over how I would come to terms with it. I used Ex's explanations, even if I never trusted them completely, to construct a story of our relationship, how it (and he) died, and how I might begin to recover. Had Ex told me about Sven the night we broke up, I would have been absolutely devastated. But I would have been absolutely devastated by the truth, and the truth is what I would have been spending these first 22 days writing about, thinking about, complaining about, and eventually learning to accept. At this very moment, Ex is most likely fucking Sven in the hotel room him he secretly booked for the two of them this weekend. (Ex told me he was going to his friend's birthday party, staying over at her house, then meeting his parents in the city tomorrow to celebrate his own birthday.)

A friend wisely urged me not to punish myself with mental pictures of Sven and Ex making love, and I won't. But I can't help but remark on this contrast: Ex may well be having an orgasm as I write this (it may be his second or third, given his and Sven's combined physical prowess), while I sit at my computer, blown to pieces, wondering if it will take yet another 22 days of writing, thinking, and self-healing before I can reclaim the piece of mind I enjoyed only a few hours ago.

(I thought of posting a photograph of Sven to illustrate this entry - a photo with his face blurred out, of course - but decided against it once I realized I would only be punishing myself more. Suffice it to say he looks like gay porn star. Insert a mental picture of your dream man here, then imagine being dumped for him.)