She had wasted years of her life with diseased men, men with sociopathy written on their faces, and she hadn’t learned a damn thing. She was simply too old to accept anything that wasn’t already familiar, even if what was familiar was rotten. But she could not, or would not, see the truth of it, and would end up repeating the same pattern for the rest of her life, what there was of it, bowing to the expectations of her crowd. She only trusted people she “knew.” The irony being that she didn’t really know most of them, not really, and, if she ever had, she didn’t anymore. They just belonged to the right group, which had never given her a decent man. But she had known him, known who he really was. But he was not condoned by them so she treated him as a perpetual stranger and joined in with the others who had treated him like an outsider and talked shit. They were shit. 

She would never acknowledge that the two years she had spent spying upon him, needing to know what he was doing, how he was, and having made a silent red-petaled admission of guilt to him, had revealed her true feelings. No, she would seek to replace him, to prove to herself that she didn’t need him, not for love, not because she truly wanted anyone else, but to rub it in his face, to show him, show herself, that she could replace him, even if it meant sacrificing whatever small amount of self-respect she may have had left by settling for another mistake, another man-child from her circle with a fancy car, an immediate mark of infancy, likely some fast-talking, outwardly likeable prick who had already been dismissed by women who had discovered his true being, a “Christian,” in name only, of course. She would choose a man, or more likely have a man chosen for her, whom she would project her love for another onto, blind to the reality of what was, someone who saw her as nothing but subservient, easy to command, like a dog, a man who needed a mommy and a maid, a winer and a diner … who would quickly become a controller and an insulter. And she would accept it. She wasn’t capable of seeing it, being attracted to every red flag. It would never occur to her that they showed up out of the woodwork because they were desperate or saw her as desperate, that someone had likely made her appear that way to them, prodding them to take advantage. That’s what setting her up with men was … literally setting her up, inorganic. These were men she’d known. They knew she existed already, but they’d had no interest in her … until she became convenient, when someone told them that she was alone, implying desperation, a premeditated advantage. It was forced interest, and not one of them would ever be interested in her the way he had been, for the reasons he’d been. 

She simply could not break from her circle, even for her own happiness. In her world, immaturity was maturity, a lack of real values was valued, pretense was truth, and being treated like an accessory, a possession, was what she called love. She likely only sought someone who could provide her a beach house to retire to, and it didn’t matter to her if that person were total garbage, a misogynist, a “conservative” bigot, a worthless human being, as long as she got her way, got her things. She couldn’t piece together their habits — their likes, their preoccupations, their politics, their inherent belief in their own superiority, their worship of vile high-profile people, their need for possessions to prove their manhood, their love for militarism, their self-serving faith — with their inherent patriarchal misogyny and ingrained propensity for psychological abuse. They were just like her ex, and none of them would or could ever care for her as he had because they did not see her as anything but a placeholder, dreaming of a better, younger woman. Nothing said “not a man” more than needing to constantly prove themselves men. But she didn’t see it. She only saw tradition and a familiar face. And even her friends who were smarter than that did not warn her away from them, encouraging her to be “happy” with men she could never be happy with, men who would turn on her. He, on the other hand, didn’t care if he died alone, poor, preferring it to shallow fakery, but she could not handle the idea. He didn’t want a maid or a mommy. She would call the whole idea crazy, yet her actions had spoken more loudly, given her away. But, knowing she would never relent, he wished her well with that, though there was little point. 

The reality was and would always be that she had betrayed him, exaggerated things beyond all recognition and for no reason, projecting her distrust, which she had learned from the men she had chosen and would choose again, onto him. She had called him manic after she had attacked him, with no conscious understanding of what she had done. She had insinuated that he was dangerous, when she was the one who had set people on the attack. She called him an angry person, which she knew was so far from the truth that she had clearly become absorbed by her own lies. She had been so intent upon it that she had feigned outrage over a harmless joke, a joke that she’d joked about herself, with him, a joke only undertaken to know her better, and she was so blinded by her need to blame him that she would never know that one particularly horrid communication she’d received at that same time had not come from him, but had to have come from someone else she knew, a “friend” of hers, exploiting the situation and injecting themselves into it anonymously to drive her suspicions, to cut her down, likely for their own eventual advantage, exploiting her need to tell everyone, seeking pity. She would never know if she had chosen that person. She had some scurrilous acquaintances, but she would never conceive of it, as appearance and familiarity were all that mattered to her, and she would never allow herself to entertain the idea anyway. In her warped mind, everyone she had known growing up was sacrosanct, even if they had already proven to her that they weren’t good people, even if they openly displayed the same type of habits as her grotesque ex, the same mindset. A big house and a lot of money meant “good.” She knew damn well that he never would have said those things, not before she betrayed him, before she hurt him, attacked him, but she would blame him forever anyway. And she had attacked him to such an unearned extent that he had finally reacted badly, out of character, and he was sorry for it. But that, what she had caused, she’d used to banish him. She knew she’d caused it and knew it was wrong, but she had to be right at all costs, for her ego, for pretense. She was spoiled and belligerent and knew she was, imagining herself to be far more mature than she ever could be, stunted, petulant, spiteful, and believing herself worth more than him. She was no Christian, as hard as she pretended. So she pretended harder. She did not want peace. She did not want love. She wanted drama and pity, and, for that reason, she would continue to create it, however she could, especially with another false sack of dog shit, whom she would let herself “fall” for, whether or not they had anything in common besides the circle, going through every clod it held until she found another one who would take her … and discover their true colors too late, as she always had. 

She had called him materialistic, when she knew it was absurd and hypocritical, as that was the type she went for. He couldn’t have cared less for stuff, and she also rejected him for not having any. She admitted that much with whom she did choose. And, for that, for the lies and lack off repentance, he would now close the door. She did not have a right to know what he was doing, how he was. She had not earned that knowledge. She had never heard him - hadn’t even tried. She would never read his stories. She would reject his songs, even if she liked them, because they were his. She would never allow herself to outwardly show any of the interest she secretly harbored, and she would never admit that she’d been wrong. She would never see him for whom he really was, only her invented caricature of him. She would never allow him to explain, nor would she admit to her own lies. She would never entertain the idea of having real love, built out of a mutual betrayal that had been … stupid. She had thrown herself on him that day, and now she would lie about why forever. 

So, two years from her concocted hysteria, wasting her life in pursuit of some imaginary shit-headed prince who would appease her crowd, likely waiting for some banal tripe of a gift on the day of hearts, expensive but unlike his, the giver not having ever endeavored to know what she loved as he had, a meaningless gift from some insincere user that she would fawn over, after having obsessively followed his every move for years, having made excuses for it by defaming him endlessly, she would be shut out … again … as she had been the first time, when she couldn’t stand it and had flipped out. She would have to live with what her actions and refusals made her, and, if that did not bother her, if she could bury the truth in another fraudulent relationship, in which she would be lying by extension, if she could forget him, then that was what she’d earned. Without penance to him, not false prayers to a god she didn’t really follow, she could not seriously ever be true to anyone or call herself a “good person” again … though she would anyway, and she would still pretend to be holy, still pretend to follow her god, whose laws she completely ignored. Her god had sent him to her, in some way, to show her what real love was, what real loyalty was. She had denied it and made him her enemy instead … because they told her to. 

All he’d done in the end was try to love her, try to be her friend. He’d loved her with abandon, but love didn’t matter to her. He had been open to talking it out, finding common ground, alleviating the worry of unplanned encounters, possibly seeing a way through and finding love. She had had ways to reach him but dismissed them. Because the truth was that he was better than what she would allow herself to have. She needed to be a doormat, needed to be controlled. She had, pathetically, said as much herself. So, she, only seeking ugly, vain, malignant assholes, rejected him, would not forgive him, would not love him … and, with that, rejected, not only him but herself, for the rest of her life, no matter how she tried to lie to herself about it, how much she swore that he was wrong. The proof was in her running away, her hiding, her extreme attempts to never have to deal with him again when she knew she was guilty as well. He hadn’t been unhinged. She had, even convincing herself that he would self harm over her. The utter conceit. 

It was her choice, and she could no longer blame him for it. She could call his words manipulation, paint them however she needed to escape the truth, but it didn’t matter. He no longer gave a shit what she thought, because she could not be honest. She would twist every word against him in her petulance. No amount of self-help pablum, false piety, or toxic positivity could change that, and it had never truly helped her, never taken away her issues, just gave her some temporary self-delusion. And she knew better. She wasn’t stupid. She was just phony, by choice, too worried about what her crowd would think and bolstered in her foolishness by their bad advice. High school never ends for some people. 

But he had seen inside her soul, briefly, and he would have done whatever he could, whatever was in his power, to be with her, would have loved her to the end. He had loved her for something that he had seen that she tried to keep hidden from people, to play off. That was why he wanted her. Unlike the men she chose, who chose her, he never saw her as easy, convenient, too wrapped up in her neuroses and, hence, controllable, able to force their vile beliefs upon her without a fight and make her conform to their warped sensibilities ... to abuse her in one way or another. He had loved her for what she kept hidden. But she was outwardly too fucking mentally superficial for words, blocked by her own upbringing from appreciating someone who truly appreciated her without ulterior motives, and, in the end, he simply wasn’t enough of a raging piece of shit for her. That was the truth. But it was also the truth that he had left a greater impact on her than all the others, because, even if she refused to acknowledge it, he had shown her that she had a choice, shown her what she had given up. So she ran. She would still defer to her circle and would go find the ugly again, to hide. She could have been more but she wanted to be less. She didn’t want deep thoughts or provocative words. She didn’t want to entertain big notions. She didn’t want a relaxed relationship built upon trust and deep emotion. She didn’t want real passion. She could have accompanied him on his journey into words, something she claimed to have once loved herself. She could have found her own once again. But she just wanted vapidity and conformity - meaningless sports talk, fake piety, buying things, ignorance, and a moronic man who cared for nothing but his own importance, not even really her - just social pretense. She’d likely already found one. So he would give her his final gift that night and take away her ability to torture her own mind by taking away her access. If she didn’t want him, then she had no need, no reason, to continue to watch him … and the fact that she did was an admission that she was lying to herself. Blatant. But she didn’t even listen to herself. So he would make her live her lies by cutting her out. 

He hadn’t made her do any of it, and he hadn’t made her refuse to confess it. She’d had two years. You can’t make someone care, and she had decided that she would forever tell herself that she didn’t, making herself subservient to some ugly-ass man-child. So he would swallow his persistent love and regret ever having met her, knowing that she would never disobey her circle, never act for her own heart, and sell herself short. He would love only the memory of the woman hiding inside her. He would occasionally dream of how it could have been. And he would sometimes pine for one night with her, to show her real passion, his real feelings. But he was not delusional and knew she did not have it in her to ever rethink her decisions. He also knew that she had probably only been watching him to collect things to ill-contextualize and use to frame him again. That’s what they wanted. That’s what she had let them turn her into. She wasn’t moving up and on. She had stopped moving at all decades ago. She could have her ugly little men. And she could either go to the one who abetted her and declare she’d misspoken, be honest and retract, or face the possible consequences for her lies in a place she didn’t want to go.