Hedley Mullins was a certified piece of dog shit. That was the ruling of the court of objectivity. But it must be asked how that ruling could be reached so soundly without having access to Hedley’s mind. Though the growing stable of women he kept was a perfect indicator, the answer was not in Hedley’s actions. The proof lay with Kayla Schumacher. 

Kayla Schumacher was an emotional mess of a woman, so much so that it could be read upon her face. Her emotional trauma ran so deeply that she was erratic, one minute seeming almost self-assured, to the point of being crude, as she had little mind of her own and tended to adopt the personality quirks of those around her, especially obnoxious men, and the next minute bawling like a baby for some perceived slight that did not exist. She could not take a joke at her own expense. She told people to shut up. She would say things out loud without realizing she had done so, sometimes to her own embarrassment. She was spoiled and childish, in mind and body, and she was paranoid, prone to exaggeration, even lying, connecting dots that did not connect, then believing them without question in some sort of pathological cope. She was cloying and needy beyond anything a “normal” man could ever stomach. She needed years of therapy but would not go. She was a hypochondriac, picky like a toddler, and had even been known to eat baby food. She was greedy and subservient to the point of annoyance, and Hedley was supposed to pick a power partner, someone respectable. Kayla was anything but that. So Hedley’s ulterior motive was an assured thing, for nothing about the situation made sense any other way. He did not and would not love this woman. 

If she had been a drop-dead gorgeous bombshell, Hedley might have had cause to risk his reputation by courting her, but, though it was unkind to say, she was not. She was not anywhere near that realm, and, though she had been very cute at one point in her life, her lifestyle and trauma had aged her and she appeared to be significantly older than Mullins. In short, she was absolutely not the type of woman a man like Hedley would be seriously interested in for any sincere reason, not the trophy he could safely parade around his friends, without fear of them seeing his ploy. Men like Hedley, without ulterior motive, would have run from her after only a few exposures - most men of his station would have, as she would ultimately serve as an embarrassment in his crowd. 

Kayla had many redeeming qualities, but, they were not qualities a man like Mullins would care about. And, to be able to find them, one had to dig. One had to dig for years, to be around her enough for them to emerge. Only one man in the last decade had spent that time, and she had shit all over him to appease her crowd. Hedley had spent no time, because a real relationship with her was not his goal. The truth was beyond apparent. He could see her damage as well as anyone, but Hedley intended to use her greed and subservience to put her under his thumb, and then turn her into his closeted whore. That was it. There was no other game plan. She could serve no other function to him. Given the penchants of people in his world, he may even have been planning to use in her in some sick game, passing her around to his friends and recording her. She had no will of her own, and she was precisely the type who could be convinced that it meant she was loved. She would give in. But even if he intended to keep her to himself, it was only to use. There was no other logical rationale for his interest, and he continued to add single women while declaring his interest in her. All the signs were there … and indelible. He was not a man. He was a well-hidden sadist, and he knew he was taking advantage. No more proof was needed than his interest. 

Kayla was perfectly intelligent enough to figure this out on her own, but she was such a desperate mess, desperate to have what her friends had, that she would convince herself that it could never be true, convince herself that she was not like that, not that easy and damaged. But she was, and deep down she knew it. Hedley was just like her ex, on steroids, and that familiarity clouded her judgment to the point of leaving her in the dark. Moreover, any decision that involved anyone even remotely connected to her crowd was made by her crowd, not by her. She had no mind of her own in those matters. If Kayla had even a shred of self-esteem left, if she had any pride in herself whatsoever, she needed to stop playing the victimized little girl and be a real woman for the first time in her life. She was too old to be taken advantage of in this way, but she was stunted. Being a real woman, a role model for her children, meant one thing, and it was requisite. She needed to banish the ugly, little users, Hedley and all, from her life and have some self-respect, even if it meant being alone the rest of her days, even if it meant judgment from her friends. It was the only way, even if the suggestion came from outside her crowd. She also needed to go find the love she had shat upon and take it for herself, the love that had arisen not from some sick plot but from honest appreciation of what dwelt inside her, to at least experience it for herself before trapping herself once again in bondage to a man child like Hedley. She needed to resolve her sins, otherwise she would never be emotionally qualified to have any relationship. 

And that is where Kayla’s tale ended. For Kayla did not have the ability to go against her clique, to deny a man with power and status, and she would choose to make herself worthless once more to appease them. She had already let him into her mind, manipulating, making himself the perfect man, and her doom was certain. All of her work on herself over the past decade would be flushed. She would cease to exist as a human being and be subsumed by him, adopting his personality. Kayla Schumacher had no spine, and given that, she would never have a real life, only one forced upon her. She would label the judgment against Mullins the product of a delusional mind, while knowing full well that she chose bad men, men with those precise qualities. Hedley would be allowed to control and rape her mind. She would never self-actualize, as her ridiculous self-help books told her she should, the one thing they were right about. In fact, if she had understood even a basic premise in any of them, she would have run from Hedley Mullins on sight. 

So Kayla Schumacher died, not in body, not in breath, but whatever person had existed that she thought she had known, thought was her, died, and, with it, died the only real chance she had had at real love, real life, in the past decade. It would not come again. 

https://youtu.be/EGoqztLRzZk LIAR - Rollins Band