119.6

WOOP! Finally! I've cracked 120 :) This gives me a BMI of 18.7, about 3 lbs away from being clinically underweight. (Although, who makes these BMI charts up? I'm pretty sure I could lose a good 10 lbs before I started to look anywhere approaching underweight! Anyhoo...)

Unfortunately it's been kind of a shitty last couple of days. A's unit at university goes on field trips sometimes, somewhere down in the woods in the South of the country. I've never really given them much thought; it looks like a beautiful place they go to, and there's a big workspace/studio down there where they can all experiment with different materials and things; he seems to have fun down there and that makes me happy. Anyway, he'd told me a while ago that his unit was going to have another trip coming up in March. Actually, he'd suggested that I come down there with them and get to see the place, which sounded like fun. But then, very abruptly, he said to me one day last week, "oh, I think I'll be going down to (this place) in a few weeks, but I don't think we can afford for you to come", so I was a little nonplussed that he'd uninvited me so suddenly and without any discussion, but I didn't think much of it - it is a study trip for him after all, and I've no need to be there.

So that was maybe a week ago. But then, last night, I was using his computer, and one of his female friends came on Skype. We'd had a fairly open - I thought - and amicable conversation about this girl a day or two ago, because I felt like there was something about her that he wasn't telling me, that they were maybe closer than he was letting on. But he assured me that, no, they only talk "sometimes", that they're just friends, there's nothing weird going on. And I tried hard to push my niggling doubts aside and believe him.

So last night, she came online, and, against my better judgement, I opened up their Skype chat log (I know, I know, this is asking for trouble, and I KNOW it's wrong to look through other peoples' private correspondence...) but I saw that not only do they speak almost every night, but that a couple weeks ago he and she had been making plans to go on this trip without the rest of the unit. She was saying things like "I'll see if they have space for the two of us"... In A's defense, he did at that point suggest that there might be other people in the unit who'd like to come with them, so maybe he wouldn't have gone with just her if it had come to it, but that was the only point in the conversation where he said *anything* contrary to the two of them going alone together. The rest of the exchange was just the two of them talking about what dates would work for them personally.

Anway, when I saw this, I just felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. This place is like a little hideaway in the woods, tree-houses and little log-cabins, lots of cute, unique tiny little buildings dotted about amongst the trees, very picturesque. Well I confronted him about it, of course, and he said he'd never had any intention of going with her. But even so, why didn't he think the exchange was even worth mentioning to me when we spoke about her? And why did he never defend our marriage? Why didn't he stop her, tell her, "I'm not really comfortable going away with just you, because I'm married"? Is it so important not to hurt her feelings? Am I not even worth standing up for?

He insists that his conversation with her had nothing to do with my invitation suddenly being retracted, and I want to believe him, I really do, but am I just being incredibly naive? If that's true, why had he kept it from me?

We had a big, ugly confrontation about this. I shouted at him, beat him with my fists, cut my arms with a kitchen knife until he restrained me. Am I an evil, cynical bitch for feeling suspicious and betrayed? Or a foolish, naive child for wanting to trust him?

He says he goes to her for reassurance, that he talks to her when he's lonely, that I don't understand his work in the way she does. And it's true. I don't. But I never will - I'm not an architect, I'm a linguist. There'll always be some architect girl ready to take him away to a little cabin in the woods and comfort him; if it's not this girl, it'll be the next. I can't give him what she gives. 119 is not small enough; I don't want to be here at all, with this shame.

In the words of Adeline, watch me vanish.