My girlfriend knows the passcode to my phone. So when she asked if she could move our private photos and videos into the Hidden album, I said sure. She didn’t want anyone to see them by accident while scrolling through my pictures. She moved them over, opened the album, and found three photos and videos of me and my ex.
They were from a year before my girlfriend and I even met. I’d forgotten they were still on my phone. Early on, we’d been pretty open about our past relationships, so in those first few seconds I thought she’d take it the same way we’d taken those conversations. Then I watched her get quieter and realized how much it had hurt her. It was one thing to hear me talk about someone I used to date. She’d opened that folder expecting to see pictures of us.
I deleted all three files from my phone before she asked me to. It was the one thing I could do right then, and it took about as long as it had taken her to find them. I wanted to tell her again how old they were and how completely I’d forgotten about them. I could hear how that would sound if I kept saying it.
That was about an hour ago. She said she needs some time to collect herself and that we’ll text tomorrow. She’s gotten me through a lot, and seeing her hurt because of something I’d left on my phone has been awful. I keep thinking about how casually I said sure when she asked to use the album.
Tomorrow she’ll have had some time to think, and so will I. Right now, every version of what I want to say starts with the same two facts she already knows. How do I tell her I understand why it hurt without making her sit through my explanation all over again?
