Because it's the truth.
And the truth should be heard.
But then I realized just because something is my truth doesn't mean it will be understood by anyone else.
Least of all the person the truth is about.
I'm changed.
I'm changed because of what happened.
And I don't think he is.
And that makes me want some kind of justice because it seems so unfair.
It's unfair that I have trouble sleeping and he probably just passes out the way he did the last time I saw him.
I wanted to write so that he'd know how much I was hurting.
So maybe knowing would make him hurt too.
And in some way, we'd be connected by our pain.
Lonely and hurting but connected.
Just like every good toxic love story.
But my healing doesn't involve him.
How could it?
He fucking caused it.
Some of my sisters are like, it's not him, don't give him that power.
But it's not power.
It's the truth.
I was one woman before.
And now I'm someone else.
Because of him.
Because of what he did.
And he showed me some painting, some painting I was supposed to know was centuries upon centuries old, and There, you see that man there? That's me.
His limbs and organs strung out as the strings on a harp.
I guess I was supposed to pity him.
Am I safe to be around? He'd asked me, weeks before it happened.
Art really does imitate life.
Foreshadowing.
He knew.
He knew then what he was capable of.
I didn't.
Love makes blind fools of us.
I don't even know if I can regret any of it.
Because now I know.
And knowing is the truth, isn't it?
The painful, numbing truth, the truth that changes you.
Scares you.
But this fear, this change in the way I see the world has given me eyes to understand some of the women I love better.
So I have that.
There's that.
I never want to see him again so there's also that.
Which is strange and sad but necessary.
Needed.
Comedy, really, a dark, tragic comedy.
I spent so much time, so many ridiculous nights, aching to see him again, longing like some hopeful girl in some Jane Austen novel.
And he always did call.
True to the script of our love story, he'd reach out and surprise everyone hearing the story, but I knew, I believed in him, and that belief, that love consuming my heart always reached out and called to him.
And he heard.
He'd hear and want to respond, because his heart was calling too.
Or so I thought.
So I wanted to believe.
Because sometimes we need to believe in something, don't we?
Because accepting that I was merely his fourth attempt to get someone on the phone that night, that he hadn't remembered even calling when he turned in the morning and realized it was my body in his bed instead of hers, that the blonde hair I'd found on his robe and his blanket was the woman he'd had the night before me, the woman who was busy that night, that her absence was the reason he needed me to distract, help him forget the pain, the darkness draining him.
And my mind, my hopeful, foolish little mind saw none of that.
She, that darling little fool, believed every loving gesture, touch, and glance, was intentional.
Because everything I am I mean.
I mean the things I say and the men I fuck and when I say I love you it's not to make you feel better.
It's to sing the truth in my heart.
The truth he took advantage of.
And used.
And devoured.
She's still there.
That darling little fool I'm so in love with, the girl who believes in happy endings and cries at Disney movies, but she's quiet right now.
She needs time.
She's gone to sleep and shut the door and I don't know when she'll rise.
I don't know when I'll feel like myself again.
But I at least know she lives.
She's missing pieces but she lives.
And when so much was never real, she was.
She is.
And I will be.
One day.
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