I had been plotting my escape from Valeria for many months before I actually did it. Maybe she was plotting as well, each of us secretly planning our way out. We were both exhausted from our near daily drama, like a marathoner in mile 25, but with no finish line. The fights had lost any real meaning. We were fighting because that’s what we did. Their only purpose was to provide the toxic nourishment that fuels dysfunctional relationships.

For some time, the post-fight sex salved the emotional wounds. I used to foolishly think the fights invigorated the sex, but if there were any truth to that, it faded fast. Our fights were consequence, not cause. Who knows the origins of our wars and how much of them predated us. Maybe all of them. Maybe we were doomed. Pawns of our past. Whatever the analysis, each fight chipped away bigger and bigger pieces of us until we were a shattered collection of disconnected fragments that couldn’t be put back together.

When the coup de grâce finally came, we summoned the energy for it.

I came home from teaching one evening to see our small apartment filled with my sketches shredded into near confetti. My easel had been smashed to pieces. Valeria stood in our “family” room with the shreds of my work all around her. She was holding a sketch in one hand, scissors in the other.

“It’s her, isn’t it?” Valeria demanded, holding high the sketch of a woman now in effigy.

“Come on, it’s just a sketch. I just used her as a model.”

“You’re still seeing her after all we went through!”

“No, I haven’t seen her since the café incident. Not once.”

“Bullshit. There are so many sketches of her,” Valeria said, squeezing the sketch so much that it was crumpling under her fist.

“I did it from memory.”

“That’s even worse than seeing her,” Valeria shouted. “You’re obsessed.”

The woman, Caroline, was a student in an adult-ed painting class that I taught. She was the only American expat in the class, and we bonded through that at first. We’d hang around after class and chat, which then evolved into meetings for midday coffees when both our partners were busy working. Caroline had a calm persona, the perfect contrast to Valeria’s wild emotional swings. Caroline was sanctuary from the trenches. She was also in a bad relationship, and we became therapy for each other. We continued to spend time together platonically whenever we could sneak away until my drama hit us head-on.

The incident occurred one afternoon when Valeria followed me and spotted us at a café not far from the Prado Museum where I taught. She threatened Caroline in a vicious stream of obscenities and vulgarities. Caroline was terrified. I stood up between them, which prompted Valeria to pivot from verbal to physical. She tried to go around me and attack in a movie-worthy public scene, but I held her off while she flailed punches at me in a state of rage. A cop appeared and separated us. I noticed some patrons filming us. The cop questioned both of us, threatening jail time. Caroline had run away, later texting me that she never wanted to see me again. “Get your shit together and snap out of it before one of you kills the other. Just leave her, you fool. But don’t contact me again. Ever.”

I read the message after avoiding public jail for disturbing the peace. Instead, we returned to our private cell. The big café drama, our own private Guernica, impacted both of us more than any other fight, perhaps due to the embarrassment of an audience, including the police, and the 15 seconds of viral infamy that ensued. But it was also the cumulative effect of all the prior battles. Eventually the levee breaks. Post-Guernica, we didn’t fight for a while. Maybe a week, which was a recent record for us. We were drained. There was a lull, a kind of unspoken détente. We went about our days pretending to be a functional couple. I think Valeria may have really been trying to save us by this kind of timeout, but I wasn’t. I had lost all hope. Since Caroline wouldn’t see me, I started sketching her as a replacement escape. Then our phony détente came to a crashing end when she found the sketches.

We didn’t do subtle.

“I can’t fucking believe you destroyed all my work. That’s a new low,” I said.

“You don’t get it. Sketching the woman you cheated on me with. You don’t think that justifies what I did?”

“I didn’t cheat on you.”

“Enough!” Valeria shouted, putting the scissors to Caroline’s penciled image. Simultaneously, Valeria screamed her jealousy at me as she cut it to pieces, calling me a cheater, liar, prick, and so on in vivid Spanish. Usually, I waited for the vitriol to end. She won the decibel battles in our fights, but this time I cut her off and screamed back louder, mean and spiteful in all that English could muster. The bilingual war was on. We got even nastier than usual. Nothing was off limits as we eviscerated each other.

I forgot what I specifically said that triggered her to take it to another level, but something set her off beyond our vicious norm. Valeria went to my supply closet and came back with an open can of paint. One of the big gallon ones. With rage in her eyes, she threw it at me, not the can, but the paint. As I veered away, a flying river of dark burgundy flew past me splattering all over the wall and floor. We both went quiet, watching the red stain ease down the wall into a slowly expanding puddle on the floor.

The metaphor howled.

Valeria called her therapist minutes later and got an emergency session that evening. I started packing while she was at therapy. I stuffed my backpack with some art supplies and as many clothes that would fit. That was all I would take. I hid the backpack in a closet.

When she got home, she looked peaceful.

“I’m going to an inpatient clinic,” she said. “Elena thinks it’s a good idea. She knows a place appropriate for me. We can’t continue this way.”

“Agreed.”

“The clinic specializes in borderline personality disorder, you know, just the moderately crazy like me.” She paused here, smiled, and then added, “and you.”

“That’s a big step. I’m proud of you.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not.”

“You need to go after me. We can’t do it together. That would be weird.”

“Maybe.”

“It will give us a break, too. We could use it.”

“Definitely.”

“Will you visit me?”

“Yes. When are you going?”

“Tomorrow morning. And Elena wants to see you tomorrow after you drop me off. I think she wants to plan your clinic stay.”

We had a fight-free night. We even cleaned the blood, I mean paint, from the floor and wall. However, a slight stain remained. The crime scene refusing to disappear.

I didn’t sleep much that night, but Valeria did. She always slept deeply no matter what the circumstances. I was jealous and dumbfounded by how she could turn off all her neuroses, all our madness, and ease into sleep like someone at peace with themselves and the world while my neuroses kept me wide-eyed through most every night.

The next morning, I took her to the clinic, helped her check in, and get settled in her room. When I was leaving, she cried. “I love you, Arsen. We’ll get fixed, one at a time. Then we’ll have a normal relationship. I mean, not too normal. That’s boring. Who wants that?”

“Yeah, just enough normal,” I said.

As instructed, after I left the clinic, I went to Elena’s office for a session. It wasn’t our first. I had seen her with Valeria a few times, and twice on my own. Elena was British but spoke perfect Spanish. Our sessions were in English, but occasionally Valeria and Elena would detour into Spanish when we were there as a couple.

“How are you?” she asked, which was how she began every session. I assumed that’s how every therapist began in the pursuit of how were you.

“I’m done.”

Elena nodded. “I figured. I think you were done months ago.”

“Maybe more,” I said. “I just hadn’t come to terms with it.”

“I think it’s time. You two have been through enough. You’ve tried hard.”

“I think so.”

“What is your plan?” Elena asked.

“Get her through this, get her home and settled, and move out soon after.”

Elena paused ruminatively. “Hmmmm,” she hummed.

“Not good?”

“May I suggest a different plan?” Elena asked.

“Of course.”

“Do it now while she’s under care. If she tries something, then she’s protected.”

“By try something you mean suicide?”

“I don’t think she will do it for real, but she may attempt it to get you back. More of a cry for help. It’s not uncommon in relationships like yours.”

“Kind of cold and heartless of me to leave at her weakest point?”

“I’d argue this might be her strongest.”

“How so?”

“She’s in protective care. She has support to deal with the impact of you ending things. She won’t see it coming despite all your dysfunction. They’ll help her recover.”

“I can’t believe it would be a surprise given all our drama.”

“I can affirm it will actually be a shock to her system.”

“And what if she does make an attempt? I have to see her then, no?”

Elena shook her head. “No, don’t. It’s counterintuitive, but the most important part. She’ll know she can use it again and she may succeed one time.”

I paused to process this. I had no compass anymore. Caroline was the only one I shared things with. Now it was just me and conversations in my head. “I will follow your advice because I have no idea what I’m doing anymore.”

“It’s the safest way if you really want to end things.”

“I do.”

“But you must promise me one thing. You can’t say it was my idea. I’ll lose her trust, and I want to continue working with her. She’ll improve without you.”

“I promise.”

“If you say it, I’ll deny it.”

“I won’t say anything.”

“And one other request. I suggest you continue therapy with someone else to process all of this and all that you brought to the relationship. On the surface, you’re more stable than Valeria, but that’s purely surface level.”

I followed doctor’s orders a few days later. We were sitting on her bed in the room that Valeria shared with another patient. Staff was setting up the main room in a circle for group therapy. It was a gathering of sad people who could no longer take the external world while they struggled in their own internal world. Valeria was right. I would fit right in.

We made awkward small talk until Valeria shared that this place made her feel better. She wasn’t scared or ashamed.

“You have no reason to feel shame,” I said. “You deserve support.”

“I think it will work. There is a lot of empathy here,” she said. “The other patients are kind and sympathetic. They get it, unlike you.”

We only had a few minutes left before she would join group therapy. I told her that I could no longer stay in the relationship. “I’m sorry, but we tried, Valeria.”

“We’ll figure things out,” she said casually. It was clear what I said didn’t register. It felt all wrong to do this, but I felt helplessly dependent on Elena. I’m not sure I would’ve taken this advice from anyone else, but Elena was convincing. I trusted her. She was maternal guidance that I hadn’t had in decades.

“Valeria, I think you should get better on your own. We’re toxic. I’m bad for you.” I started explaining how we needed time alone to rebuild our individual selves, that it couldn’t be done as a couple.

“Right, which is why you need to check into the clinic after me. Isn’t that what Elena said?”

“Ummmm, yes, she did, but I don’t think that, ahhh, solves us. We can’t, I mean, we don’t. We need time.”

“Are you trying to say we need a break?” she asked, her eyes shifting quickly and darkly as she processed my cruelty.

“Well, yeah, maybe longer.”

“You’re too cowardly to say you’re breaking up with me. That’s what you’re doing, right?”

“I’ve tried before, but—”

“You’re fucking kidding, right?” Suddenly, all the peace and hope she felt in her short stay here was gone. As always, I was the culprit.

“Sorry.”

“I don’t believe you. I mean, you can’t be this heartless. Even you can’t. You wouldn’t leave me like this, here.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Stop saying sorry! It means nothing.” She stood up. I could see her jaw muscle twitching as she grinded her teeth, a typical precursor to an emotional storm. She then closed her eyes and was silent for nearly a minute, jaw still hard at work. I assumed it was a new meditative technique she learned here because I had never seen her try to quell an outburst. We didn’t have pauses in our fights. They were always rapid-fire fusillades.

When she finally looked at me, jaw muscles softened, she said, “I’ll see you tomorrow. We can talk more.”

Then she left for group. As I left, I turned to wave goodbye for what I expected to be the last time I would ever see this woman I had spent five years with. She shot a quick glare at me and then looked away as if I wasn’t even there.

I left the hospital, went in the back alley, and sat down behind a dumpster. The smell was appropriately putrid. Moments later I wept a river of tears. Loss was loss no matter how messed up it was. The last time I wept like that was with my brother Krikor when we found out our parents died in a middle-of-the-night car crash. This time it was just me and garbage, but I suspect the tears were related.

Eventually the levee breaks.

When I returned to the apartment, I grabbed my already packed backpack and left Valeria a note: I’m leaving Spain, and I won’t be back. We just couldn’t make it work. I wish we could have. You’ll be better without me, without us – Arsen. I had originally written sorry a few times but threw that out and rewrote it without sorry.

I wiped my eyes dry and left the apartment for the last time.

I took the train to the airport having no idea where I would go. I just knew it had to be now and far, far away. Africa was too close. Just a quick trip across Gibraltar unless I went farther south. Cape Town maybe? Nothing compelled me to go there. Maybe northern Europe, one of the Scandinavians perhaps, but it was too accessible, too Europe. The same continent was psychologically too close. Then I considered my homeland. I had never been to Armenia. As far as I knew, all my ancestors had been murdered in the Genocide except for the few who made it to the States. I didn’t know anyone there, but Armenians always bond. We are few. We are survivors forever tied by our tragedy. But Armenia didn’t feel right, though Asia did. Faraway Asia, not Eurasia. I thought of Bali and beaches and swaying palm trees. Then I thought of Gauguin’s Tahiti, but they were too trendy, too touristy. I didn’t want to be surrounded by wealthy Westerners being catered to by natives.

As I was in line at the ticket counter, getting closer and closer with no destination pulling at me, a San Francisco memory suddenly popped into my head. When it was my turn, I asked the agent, “When is the next flight to India?”

She tapped her keys like a maestro. “In four hours. Delhi, but with multiple layovers. It’s not an easy journey.”

“That’s fine. Neither is life,” I joked, which went unrecognized.

“I have one seat left. Last row, middle.”

“Do you have a connection to Kolkata?”

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap... “Yes, I do. The next day on Air India from Delhi. I can book that for you, too.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Passport and visa please?”

Oh shit, I thought. In the moment of escape, I had forgotten the world was a complex matrix of rules and regulations.

“I only have a passport.”

She did some more rapid typing. “India has an e-visa on arrival program.” She wrote a  link down and told me to fill it out predeparture. “It takes 24 hours, but you’ll arrive well after that with this ticket.”

Juliet Parsons was one of the Sunsetters, a coterie of artists that I was a part of during my San Francisco youth. Juliet loved Kolkata. She called it a hidden gem of bohemia. She used to specifically rave about an area called College Street with its many bookstalls, a university, and a legendary coffee house. Juliet was a photographer specializing in artistic travel photos. She had  a showing of her work at a hip SOMA gallery. The photos were all of India with a focus on College Street. I was intrigued then, especially with the coffee house. In San Francisco, I had painted a series around the iconic Café Trieste, capturing the café life and its North Beach neighborhood. I decided I would do another café series. Maybe those are the only paintings I would ever do. I didn’t have a family, and cafés tried to fill that void. The new series of café paintings could provide purpose during the overseas detox. There was also the exotic allure that few travelers to India go to Kolkata. It may be the biggest city in the world that’s more or less off the map.

After I got my ticket, I went to the bathroom and flushed my SIM card down the toilet. I crushed my phone underfoot and threw the pieces in the garbage. In a few hours I was on my way to the other side of the world unable to contact or be contacted.