April 22, 2025

By Olivia Green

I honestly don’t even know where to start. It’s been a few days, and I’m still processing what happened. I’m 19, and I know I should have probably handled things better, but to be honest, I just walked into the worst possible situation.

Let me set the scene.

I had been dating this guy in high school, right? He was my first real boyfriend, and we were pretty serious. But things ended when he broke up with me, saying he wanted the classic “college experience.” I was heartbroken at first, but we stayed in touch. Over the years, we ended up hooking up a few times after the breakup—mostly him initiating and me agreeing, even though I still had feelings for him. I guess I thought there was still some hope for us, even if it wasn’t the healthiest thing to keep doing.

Anyway, fast forward to now. We both go to different universities, but they’re in the same city, so we occasionally run into each other. It’s awkward sometimes, but I try to keep it civil. I now live with my roommate, who’s 18, in a dorm on campus. She’s super chill, but there’s one thing she’s notoriously bad at: texting me when she has guys over. I’ve walked in on her at least three times having “fun” with different guys. It was always a bit uncomfortable, but I tried to shrug it off because, hey, we’re college students, right? We all have our moments.

But this time, it was different. This time, I wasn’t just walking into another awkward situation with a random guy. No, this time, I walked in on my ex—the same one I had a whole emotional history with—sleeping with my roommate.

I stood there for a second, frozen in shock, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. He looked just as surprised as I was. My roommate? She didn’t even flinch, just kind of shrugged, clearly annoyed that I had interrupted them. I can’t even explain the wave of emotions that hit me. Anger, confusion, disbelief. But mostly, just complete humiliation.

It felt like everything I had kept bottled up about my ex came rushing to the surface. How he’d broken up with me for college, how I had let him back into my life over and over, and now here I was, looking at him, in bed with my roommate. I’m not sure if she knew the whole backstory or if she even cared. She didn’t seem to.

I didn’t know what to do. Part of me wanted to yell at both of them, but the other part of me just wanted to disappear and pretend it hadn’t happened. Eventually, I left the room, and when I came back later, they were both gone. She apologized, but it didn’t feel sincere.

I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to feel right now. Betrayed? Embarrassed? Angry? I feel like I’ve lost control of the situation, and I don’t know how to move forward with either of them. It’s just such a messy, confusing situation, and I don’t know if I should talk to her, talk to him, or just try to forget the whole thing.

Right now, I’m just sitting in my dorm room, processing the fact that I walked in on my ex and my roommate. It’s not a moment I ever expected to have, but here I am. It’s going to take a long time for me to figure out what to do next, but for now, I’m just trying to survive the awkwardness.