There is always a little time after a breakup where you allow yourself to imagine that it isn’t real. Sure, you had a big fight. Yes, you needed some space apart from one another. And you were willing to endure a few difficult weeks where you stayed in your respective corners and reflected on all the mistakes you made. All of this, you knew how to wrap your mind around. You could live it because there was a voice in the back of your head — one you intentionally fostered — which said that this was all some grave mistake. At some point in the near future, you thought, the two of you were going to come running back into one another’s arms, admitting how wrong you were to ever go, and explaining how you perfectly mirror the other’s feelings. Everything was supposed to work out.
在分手后，你总是会给自己一段时间让自己觉得所发生的一切都不是真的。的确，你经受了一个重大打击。确实，你需要一些独自的空间。你希望呆在一个单独的角落去度过这段反省错误的艰难时光。即便这样，你还是知道如何在周遭隐藏自己的想法。但是你仍然抱有这些想法，源于你发自内心的一个声音总在脑后萦绕，告诉你都犯了一些严重错误。你曾想，在不久将来的某个时刻，你们俩能够重新回到彼此的怀抱，接纳彼此的错误，告诉彼此是如何理解对方的感受。一切问题似乎都解决了。
And as long as that is a possibility, as long as you are able to tell yourself, “This is going to work out at some point, ” it’s okay. At least until you’re proven wrong, the breakup isn’t quite real. Sure, it’s not like it was before, but it’s as if you’re standing outside a home for which you still have the key. You’re cold now, but you’ll go back inside. And even without a vague sign of reciprocation for your lingering feelings, you’ll stay in the limbo for as long as they’ll let you. It’s better, of course, than finding out that they’re over it. Anything is preferable to that.
只要这是可能的，只要你可以告诉自己“这一切都会解决的”，那么一切都会好的。至少在被证实是错觉之前，你的心碎不会那么真切。的确，一切再也不像从前了，但感觉就像你站在那个家门外，依然拥有那扇门的钥匙。你现在很冷，但是你却将回去。即便没有产生这些迷茫感觉的烦乱想法，只要一想到他们，你就仍然心神不宁。当然，一切都比发现他们已经感觉没事了要好。
One day, though, it’s going to happen. You’re going to hear through mutual friends that they’re seeing someone else. You’re going to hear rumors which become too detailed, too realistic, to ignore any longer. You’re going to simultaneously want to see proof so badly that you’ll go out of your way to run into the couple, and want to pretend as though they do not and have never existed. Their presence in your life puts and end to both your former relationship, and the increasingly tenuous hope that you would be able to pick up where you left off. Suddenly, there is no gray space to inhabit where things would likely one day work themselves out. There is a feeling of your ex somehow crossing an invisible line. Before, everything was forgivable. Before, the breakup was simply a mutual mistake. Now, they have slept with someone else. They have held hands with someone else. They may have even told someone else they loved them. What were once easy steps to retrace are now intensely complicated, peppered with hurt feelings and your recurring thoughts of what they must look like in bed together.
然而，那些事情终会发生。一天，你从你们一个共同的朋友那里得知他的身边已又有个她。你听到他们那些事情是如此详细，如此真实，以至于你再也无法忽略。你想此刻就看看这对恋人，你是多么希望他们并不是恋人，一切都没有发生。他们的出现，使你失去了许多你们曾经共同的朋友，对于那些已丢掉的东西，想重拾的希望也越来越渺茫。突然之间，你们的生活中将不再有交集。你和前任之间也相隔于无形。在此之前，一切都还是可以原谅的；在此之前，分开还简单地只是共同的错误。然而现在，他们已经与另一个人相拥而眠，他们已经牵着另一个人的手。他们也许已经对另一个人说“我爱你”。曾经可以轻易重拾的过往此刻变得让人如此纠结，你感到满布伤痕，头脑中反复闪现他们在床第间应有的模样。
You wish you could ignore it, but it’s all you can think of. As your mutual friends all turn their eyes to you — waiting for you to lose it, waiting for you to go into “crazy ex” mode and start implicating them in your messiness — you can’t help but turn your eyes to the new couple. You have never felt a stronger desire to know every detail and yet be so wounded by every thought. You want to know, but you don’t. You hate them, but you love them. And all the while, the pressure to remain mature, to remain the person who accepts a love lost with a stoic generosity, becomes more than you can bear. It feels as though everyone gets to continue living their life and enjoying themselves except you. You are the one who has to be humiliated, who has to learn from everyone else’s mistakes.
你希望你自己可以忽略这一切，但是你能想起的全是这些。当你们这些共同的朋友们全将视线投向你，等待着你在这一切中迷失，等待着你步入那对前任疯狂迷恋的状态，等待着你开始将他们一起卷入你的烦乱中，你无法自拔只能关注这对新人。你从来没有如此强烈地渴望知晓他们的每个细节，纵然每一缕思绪都让你如此受伤。你想知道，但都不知道。你讨厌他们，但又爱着他们。你终究迫于保持成熟的压力，迫于维持一个即使失去恋人仍然慷慨坚韧的姿态，变得承受力更强了。这感觉就像是除了你以外，每一个人的生活都在继续，都活得很自在。只有你成了那个感到难堪，必须承担所有错误的人。
There are moments where you consider calling. You get drunk enough to dial a number that you might hang up on, or drive past their house ten times without ever parking the car. You torture yourself with the prospect of standing up for yourself, of making your presence known, even if it inconveniences everyone. And then you realize it — what may be the most damaging of all your unfortunate epiphanies. The truth is, they don’t owe you anything. You are no longer together, and they no longer want you. As much as you want to paint this new couple as a personal slight against everything you had together, the “you” as you understood it no longer exists. And every overture you make to get them to apologize for a wrong they didn’t actually commit only proves that you are the one who has lost. And so you stare at their name in your contacts, you realize that you aren’t going to call them — that you couldn’t even if you really had the courage to — and you wonder how you start to forget a number you’ve known by heart for so long.
有很多时刻你想打电话。你在喝了很多以后才拨打那个你终将挂断的号码，又或数次开车经过他们的房子而从未停留。你质问自己应该为自己重新振作，质问自己令每一个人感觉不适的表现。然后你顿悟了，也许是你发现这是所有你感到不幸的顿悟中最让你受伤的。事实就是，他们不再亏欠你任何东西。你们不再在一起了，他们也不再需要你了。相对于你们曾经历的点点滴滴，你尽可能地轻视这对新人，纵然你明白那个“你们”已经不再存在了。每一次你开始指望他们为自己的错误向你道歉，他们实际不会这样做，这只能证实你就是那个失落的人。你注视着你通讯录上他们的名字，你明白你不会再联系他们了，即使你再鼓起勇气也不会了，你想知道如何开始忘却那个你用心记了很久的号码。
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