It was the strangest of psychological conundrums. She loved him in her denial of loving him, but she did not care for him. It was questionable whether she truly cared about anybody, even herself, as her professions of love always seemed premeditated, scripted, something she felt she was supposed to say, 

And her interactions with people gave off an air of coy wheedling more than sincerity. She rarely bothered to acknowledge most of her friends and family, waiting for something she could use to have them come to her with pity. 

She was obsessed with the idea of love, but she didn’t know what it was, having been defined for her by lame songs, cheesy 80’s movies, and vain, self-absorbed men. 

And, while she did love him, as her obsession proved, more deeply than she would ever allow herself to admit, she would never recognize it as such, rationalizing it away as something else. She’d tried to let him go many times, ignoring him as hard as she could and lying to herself about why, demonizing him, pretending not to think of him.

But he was the only one who’d ever been so loyal, even when he had no reason to be, not one reason, and he was the only one who’d called her out on her fakery, refusing to kiss her ass to sway her. She could not disregard that even if everyone around her told her to. It was an honesty she would never find again. She would only find a pale imitation in abuse meant to control her. It was not in her nature to let that go, and her heart wouldn’t allow it. To do so would make her an evil person, kill whatever was left in her that was real. 

She hated him for that, and she loved him for it, enough so that she could not evict him from her heart, as hard as she tried. Her heart would always overrule her mind in that respect, though she was repulsed by how natural it really was. She liked fake. She sought fake, something in her rejecting deep emotions and commitment out of hand, as if it would consume her. And, with him, it had, and she hated it. 

But it was clear to him that she was basking in his misplaced loyalty, in his love that stroked her ego but that she could dismiss and trivialize as insanity, when she was projecting her denial, and she had no intention of ever taking it, taking him.

And now she sought to remove herself from her obsession, seeking to start fresh somewhere new with someone new, not realizing that it would only drive her obsession deeper, the distance making the self-inflicted loss all the more acute and the falsity of what she called “love” standing in jarring contrast to the real thing that he had offered her. Now she had known real love, the superficiality of those who chose her, those she gave herself to, would be something she could not ignore. 

He could not be replaced on a whim, although she would deny any desire to have him at all, and her coy behavior, her efforts to manipulate others for pity were no longer cute. Though she still carried an air of youthfulness, being small and pretty, she was simply too old for it now. He knew that she would never acknowledge him again, and, so, though he planned to expose her for things she had done, things she needed to face, to come to terms with and stop ignoring, stop playing the babe in the woods, he would do the only thing he could do for her. Though he had tried before, unsuccessfully, he would take his love from her. 

He’d said it before, and had been unable, the fear of drifting from her mind compelling him to scream. He had waffled in his emotions, declaring his hate, then his love, and making himself look foolish. She took his love to bask in the thought of someone so enraptured with her, but she gave nothing. And now she was physically leaving him for good and none of it mattered, carrying herself away to where she should not be, as she belonged with him, though she would never imagine going back on her own drama, disobeying her little word of control. 

Though his love was for her, and always would be, as it would not die, it was also his. It belonged to and came from his heart, and she had no right to abuse it to pad her own ego with no intention of ever accepting it. It would drive him mad, but she did not hear him anymore anyway. His words meant nothing to her, he meant nothing to her, except as a sad joke with her friends in public and a guilty pleasure in private, letting him puff up her heart but not returning the feeling. And his protestations, things she knew were true, only strengthened her resolve to dismiss him, her denial being her foremost talent. So he would keep his love from her, still existing, but not accessible to her any longer. She had spurned it and did not deserve to see it professed ever again. He would no longer speak sweet words to her nor scathing indictments of her self-deception, and he would never approach her. He would not beg. He would not reason with her. She would have no more truth, only the lies of those who sought to control her, the whispers of the phony world she clung to. 

She was going to leave, leave him there, cut his throat in spite and disregard for his existence, and he would not allow her to take his love with her, to use it to keep her thoughts warm when she was used again, when lonely in a crowd, when lost in phoniness and banality. He had shown her passion she would never know again. She could spend the rest of her life seeking her fairy tales that turned to nightmares but not be able to console herself longer knowing that his love was waiting.

He had waited for her, and she had left him forlorn and betrayed. She’d laid him low, and the vindictiveness sang in her eyes.