What was it, this fascination that had appeared from nowhere, with no identifiable origin? Was it an irrational attraction to neurosis? To feigned self-pity, bids for anyone's attention? Was it the coarseness of the adopted personality, learned from true trash? Was it the presenile aging, a perverse need for a mother substitute, as she needed a father surrogate? The diminutive, underdeveloped frame, the failing elasticity of skin? The childishness? Or was it insincere murmurs of feelings she did not possess, an act played to the hilt, the gross, self-abasing subservience that no real man would ever desire, but which held no truth, yet another act? That she was now free from children, and manipulatable, suffering from empty nest? Or was it a sense that she was a liar, a reality that now radiated from her, as she had damaged her soul with lies so vile and vindictive that it could not be hidden? She had never accepted her sins and they followed her, but she knew her superficial faults. She knew she was everything a shallow man ran from, and only a user at that age would spend the time. She knew there was no actual attraction, not at that age, could feel it. It was simply too convenient, too sudden, too fast, too perfectly timed. But she needed to pretend there was.

They had not been in forced proximity for an extended time, mandated time during which to see anything below the surface, to uncover what she kept hidden from public eyes. There had never been any intense study of her, no delving below the surface, no digging for whom she really was. He didn't know a single thing about her inner desires, except for the sports. But, somehow, magically, he was "in love" with her. It was a ruse only a fool would buy, and she chose to be that fool.

She had spurned the chance to be with eyes that saw no outward flaws. She had squandered her opportunity to be with someone who had done all those things, who had dug deeper, been near her, noticed the little things she tried to hide in her superficial need to be seen as cool. She'd not just wasted it, she'd destroyed it, insanely, with malice, incapable of venturing away form those who told her how to live. And, if she did not regret it, then she had destroyed herself in the process.

No, what passed for interest now, from one who had no basis for any real interest … and had none ... what motivated him was one thing only—a need to possess someone, and he had failed at that for so long that what now appeared to him as easy, a shoo in, was too much to pass up, as his time was running short. So he targeted her and laid it on thick, though there was nothing real in it and she knew it.

When she had destroyed her last chance, she had given up on herself, given up on anything real. She'd never known it anyway, having only been wanted by louts who treated her badly, made her be who they wanted, not who she was, and then threw her away, so she did not and would never know what it was like to be wanted for what she kept hidden, for herself. Hence, she did not know what she had lost. She was content to become Mrs. He-Couldn't-Find-Anyone-Else ... Mrs. I-Happened-To-Be-There-And-Have-No-Pride ... Mrs. Who-Needs-Real-Love-Anyway?

But the irony was that he thought he had conned her easily and would have his desired possession, which held no other value for him outside of that designation. And he had … though she knew it was not sincere, believing he at least wanted her for her, even if only insignificantly. He didn't. But he did not realize that she had played him just as hard, for the face she wore for him, and others, was not her own. She was not who he thought she was, anymore than he was who she thought. And she did not really want him either, only the semblance of being wanted ... and things, things he would buy for her to substitute for his lack of real interest. And, once the fateful decision was made to legally bond, both their masks would fall away, and they would end up hating each other, though neither would likely admit it ... stuck either with each other or with being alone.

And they would both have earned it. It was the price they paid for shallowness and dishonesty. He had no option. He had tried to find someone, but he was alone because he was a creep. She should have seen it, as she repeated her past mistake again. But she had had another option, an option who remained alone from choice, from a heart that she had torn to pieces and spit upon, from a sincerity he had not found for anyone else and refused to fake, as she did, refused to target and use, just to have someone, though he could. 

She was a fuck up. And now her name would forever more be Mrs. I-Am-A-Shitty-Dishonest-Person.