It's been three years since that day. Three years since I came home in a drunken stupor and found him sitting up at two am in the dark texting a mysterious someone he tried to pretend was his brother. Three years since I woke up an hour later as he snored next to me and read the words that broke my heart. Three years since I discovered the other woman I'd been accusing him of looking for the entire time we were together. Three years since our relationship died in an instant despite lapses and breakups, crackling chemistry, intense passion and fiery love.
That I caused it makes it doubly agonizing.
That he withstood the machinations of that cold hard knot of hate that was my heart, the testing, the fights, the hurt, the endless and tiresome questioning of his mind, body and spirit is a testimony to how much he did love me. And all I gave him back was fear and jealousy, spiteful words and bad behavior that I loathed performing but found myself unable to stop.
Facing those demons isn't easy. Especially when they writhe in such delicious joy from causing so much pain, manipulating every word, twisting every scenario, searching for the proof of infidelity where there is innocence and fun being had. Because the demons don't like it when someone is having fun without them.
The origin of them is simple enough. Someone very important wasn't there, and every man that stood in his spot vanished eventually (from death, divorce, or despair), which was tangled up with witnessing my grandfather's heart attack from our apartment window across the street on the second floor. I couldn't do anything about it, but somehow it became my fault. And if I'm the reason they left, then I could never trust one that wanted to be with me in the first place.
And so it began.
It played out many times, many ways, with essentially the same underlying pattern being repeated. I let them love me, but I wondered why they did. I didn't want to be left alone so I would leave them first and find someone else. It wasn't until my heart was in it and his wasn't that the stakes got raised, and the demons slithered out from the despair I felt at his betrayal, whispering how I should have known.
Because looking back, I did know. I knew there was something between them. Everyone knew. Except he was in denial and she was sad thinking she lost him to me and I was just the catalyst that caused love to spark between them. I was so innocent, having just had the shocking metamorphosis of self as adult, which he bore witness to and encouraged and inspired.
And worse, he lied to me about her, didn't come clean for a long time, so the demons grew stronger in my rejection, in my assurances that I was right, in the sadness of losing him and being alone.
I barely had time to recover from this before I met another him, and eagerly enjoyed the air balloon of romance offered by a man who wanted to be something better than he was. I knew it was wrong, but I let him love me. It wasn't until our relationship felt threatened in a way that felt too familiar to what had happened before that I began to question him. He faltered, with me throwing stones at him with the repetition of a deranged lunatic. I beat him down so hard that it shames me. I have never been so cruel and so unkind and I hated myself the entire time I did it but I couldn't stop myself. I promised I would never be in another relationship if that was what I would do, because I couldn't put another person through that and I couldn't be that girl again.
I had to break the pattern. I was the problem. I shut myself off. I threw myself and my belongings into a tiny studio apartment and spent long nights staring out the window and wondering who I was, who I wanted to be, what the fuck was wrong with me. I smoked. I drank. I wandered through everything else. If someone came around I made sure to push them away. I built emotional walls with high standards, a tough exterior and rough edges. No one would ever hurt me again and I would keep myself from hurting someone the way I did him.
And then time passed.
Being alone felt good, doing what I liked to do, being solitary and not having to explain myself, enjoying the silence, no questions, no answers; no relationship, no demons. I thought I was healed. I felt confident in myself and who I was and where I was going. I thought since I had better friends and better days I was ready for this new relationship when it arrived unexpectedly.
At first it was careful and polite, then it was a surprise, an avalanche, an unstoppable force of nature, and as the days settle into a routine, and the words build up between us, and things in my life fell prey to a slew of unfortunate circumstances (my family, my friends, my jobs, my living situation all taking dark twists), the demons began to waken after their long slumber.
And more than anything I want to stop them. I will name them, call them out, shine all the lights on them that I can, because I don't want to be the girl they make me and more than anything I don't want to hurt him, my moon. The more I love without their voices behind my behavior the closer I get to being free.
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