This is how it happened, the full story, not the scraps sold as truth by a self-interested heart. These are the parts told but unheard, unaddressed, unheeded by those who believed and still believe what was and is most convenient for them. It is a story of unfairness and self-serving lies, of heartbreak, and of conformity to a world without a soul. It is the story of the death of trust and the murder of love. 

He had not wanted her. He had found her annoying and cloying, too interested in feeling sorry for herself and having faded with time. But she was also a flirt, an incessant one, who had made him feel as if interest existed in her, had spoken words of a type reserved only for those whom one would consider, never one whom was found to be repulsive. She smiled. She touched. She made innuendo openly, in front of others. There was an affinity, a likeness of souls. And, over time, with proximity, he had come to believe that she was a true soul, though a damaged one, who needed love, and he, against his common sense, fell for her, though he’d kept it quiet for eons, not believing it the right place to pursue someone. 

Finally, however, fearing he would be reassigned, he broke down, and he reached out … to a warm reception. It made no difference what she told others, as he only knew what she said to him, how she acted toward him. He’d never conceived of her as overly vain, and she had no reason to be. He reached out, tired of hearing her abase herself when he saw her as beautiful, if scarred, and she responded, he believed, in good faith. Yet he still did not reveal his feelings, not yet. Instead, he bought her a gift—wine— reciprocity for kindness she had shown him the preceding two years. She had told him to give her a list, and he had, thereby, unknowingly becoming a burden to those who surrounded her, those who were not of good faith nor true of tongue. But he did not see it, and she gave no indication. Her response to his gift was leading. After he told her about it, and he told her before he gave it to her, she suggested of her own accord that she would leave her car door open for it. The following day she threw herself on him in an embrace. What should he have thought? And, after he’d delivered it, she again embraced him, a long embrace, not a pat on the shoulder. Again, what should he have thought? And she raved about the wine to him.

They began speaking often, electronic missives, almost daily, but nothing untoward, no pressure. And she kept pressing him as to why he’d gotten her the gift, though he’d already told her, fishing for something. Then he made a mistake, the first of many. That he’d made a mistake the day he let his heart grow fond of her would be unknown to him for some time. 

He’d noticed that another, one who was married, had begun to speak and act toward her in ways a married man, who was not a letch, should never act. And he saw her reciprocate that attention, though he believed it was because she did not know how to rebuff it. He was wrong. This letch began to paw her regularly, in ways reserved for spouses and children, and made comments that were not only inappropriate for a work setting but inappropriate in any setting, comments that demeaned her, treated her as his plaything, though they were made in “jest.” And he, acting with complete sincerity and worry, thought it best to describe the situation, what appeared to be outright manipulation and boundary-crossing, on social media, where she would see it. And, suddenly, for his care, his world went dark. 

She continued to speak to him as if everything were the same, but she continued to pester him about why he’d gotten her the gift. He, finally, relented and expressed his long-burning interest in her. She had, clearly, known it already, but, instead of telling him that she did not want to pursue anything from the start, she waited until his confession to burn him coldly, and it was unforeseen to him. It made no sense. It did not comport with her earlier behavior. Something had changed, and it was tied to his warning. She did not like being called out for her lack of morality, for her desperation for attention from, seemingly, any man. But she still told him that they were and would always remain friends. Those were her words, and he took her at her word. Having become so enamored of her, he could not simply let her go, and friendship had seemed better to him than nothing.

They continued to talk, almost daily. Not once did she tell him she did not want to associate with him as anything more than coworkers … not once. It never occurred to him that she was placating him as she placated the letch. He thought they shared something closer, even if it were not love. When he said nothing for days, she would reopen communication. She did not, in any way, try to end the missives. But she grew hot and then cold, close and then distant, as if others were constantly trying to control her feelings, until one day, after he’d told her that if she needed to do something or just didn’t want to talk to him to tell him. And she did tell him, though she did not say that she did not want to text him nor for him to text her. She did not. She told him merely that she wanted to relax at night, after work, and didn’t want to be on her phone. He understood, and, for a while, they only texted in the afternoon. He would try to let her go, but she would continue the conversations, and, eventually, they returned to day and night. He thought nothing of it. He had not forced her. She continued to respark conversations and initiated her own, sometimes being warm and open, sometimes cool and short. Her posts were still on his page. There was no way for him to know what was in her mind. 

Then he’d made his third mistake. Though he knew it was wrong, it was not undertaken to be deceitful nor cruel. He only wanted to know what she was really thinking. So he pretended to be someone else online, trying to get her attention, only to pick her brain, to see what drove her. In his mind and heart it was silly, nothing more, and he did not intend for it to cause harm. But, in her need for attention and pity, she told everyone she could about the “person” online, obsessing over it. She even told him, and he told her to block. She did not, needing to use it for attention. But someone she told decided to use it against her, and him. Of course, this someone was obviously one of her “friends,” but they had decided to try to frame him by sending her a disgusting, vicious, and abusive email, purportedly connected to his alter ego, which he did not know the contents of until everything had burned down. He did not send it, and he would not have. So he did what he could in the way of damage control and told her a simple way to get rid of his feigned persona. She was hesitant, so he made an alternative email for her, and she okayed it, thanked him for it, though she would later lie, and he rid her of his alter. Yes, he never should have done it, but the harm that was caused was inflicted by whichever “friend” of hers chose to take advantage, not by him, and he was never connected to the nasty email because he had not sent it. He’d felt bad about his stupid trick and he gave her an out, but she did not take it. In fact, she seemed to be closer to him afterwards. He felt that her new attention had not been earned, and he backed off somewhat, waiting until he could earn her closeness under sincere circumstances. 

They continued to talk, almost daily, as friends. Yes, he would sometimes joke about his attraction for her, but it was sincere, unlike the attention she continued to accept from the letch, the continued pawing. But, as time went on, he began to suspect that she was, in fact, humoring him to an extent, torn between being his friend and the insidious gossip of those around her about him. So, though it pained him immensely, he decided to let her go. He loved her, though he had not told her so, but there was nothing there for him. Her friendship began to seem thin. So he prepared a parting gift for her, painstakingly assembled it, based upon what she had told him she liked, her interests. She had told him much that was personal. He did not know that they were not her real interests, that her interests were much more shallow. As before, he told her about it in advance, and, as before, she accepted it in advance to be delivered the same way as before. 

It was the day before the foul day of fake love, the day of hearts, and he found her door locked. She had set him up. She had listened to someone else, who fed her need for pity and used the situation to their own advantage, giving advice they had no right to give, as they did not know the real situation, only what she painted to them for their attention. But, somehow, the gift found its way to her, and she had sent him numerous thank yous, though there were no hugs. Yet, she and her friend acted as if he were suddenly one of their confidantes, her friend even, ostensibly, repeating her feelings about him to another in front of him, clearly so that he would hear. But the locked door had said all that needed to be said, and he resolved to let her go forever. He went silent, giving her exactly what she had been telling everyone else she wanted, and he hoped she would catch on. She did not, or she did but she would not allow it. 

Though he ignored her as best he could, she refused to let him. Though the missives stopped, the touching continued. She would call him into conversations and put him on the spot in front of others. She would smile and wave to him. She later claimed that it was only because she didn’t want work to be awkward, but she had made it so, putting him in a situation in which he did not know what she wanted. The demands for attention increased. She became angry at his lack of attention towards her, while telling others that he was angry. Those around them, directed by whatever she was telling them behind his back, grew distant and cold. He became isolated, and he did not want to go in anymore. He could not understand why she didn’t just accept that he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore and leave him alone. His silence was not because of her initial rejection, which had not been a real one, not guided by her heart, but for her betrayal, her having set him up to hurt him. He did not trust anything she said anymore. She was cold and vain, her warmth and interest in others an act. 

It went on this way. She yelled “Good morning” at him one day in front of everyone, with seeming emotion in her voice. She watched him through windows. She danced in front of him in her new outfit. She hunted him down one day to show him pictures of his gift. She had given it to her dog, and he could not understand why on earth she would show him that if she wanted his attention. He dropped her from social media, making his decision clear. Then the shit hit the fan. She could not accept that he was no longer interested in her. Why she could not was a mystery, as it was what she had wanted. She had either been lying to him or lying to herself, and she was not making work any less awkward with her insistences. She was making everything worse. And, one day, she accosted him at lunch. 

She came to his car, and she demanded that he stop ignoring her. She berated him for his warning about the letch, calling him delusional. She opined about what her friends would have thought if they’d read his words, thereby admitting that it had both been his warning that changed her feelings about him and tacitly admitting that she knew what she allowed, how she behaved toward the letch, was wrong. But, somehow, her behavior was his fault. She told him she loved his gifts, that they were “amazing,” and she lambasted him for never having said hello to her first, which was not true. She began to sob, so he hugged her which she accepted. But she had put him back into the situation he did not want to be in. It seemed she needed to control him. 

Once again, she left him with no understanding of what she wanted, where they stood. So he did all he could do, and he sent her an email making his position clear, trying to placate her, as her behavior had become erratic. But she had already made plans, unknown to him, devious, deceitful plans, and she was only waiting for the impetus to play them. He gave it to her, unwittingly. She had not answered his message, and he, apoplectic at the inconsistencies between her words and actions, emailed her again, without placation. It appeared, yet again, that someone else intervened and told her what to think, what to do, someone whose attention she craved and who saw an advantage for themselves, and her response to him was not to contact her anymore. She, the woman who had just come to his car demanding that he stop ignoring her. 

His mind reeled. It made no sense in any universe. Her words and actions were diametrically opposed, most likely because half of them were not her own. Fearing the side of her that seemed unhinged, he was desperate to know what her problem was, so he made another mistake and returned to subterfuge, only to attempt to figure out what was going on in her head. Recall that she had refused to leave him alone when he had made it crystal clear that he wasn’t associating with her anymore. She had made him the work pariah with her talk behind his back. He was worried about what else she would do, so he pretended to be someone like the men she knew—trust fund babies, emotional infants who spent their nepotistic money on life-sized Hot Wheels. She did not answer anything, as he knew she would not. But what he did not expect was what happened next. 

She filed a complaint against him, two to be exact. The women who had pretended to be his friend, made no attempts to stop his attention, had talked to him for months on end and told him personal things, who had accepted his gifts willingly and had refused to let him walk away, had decided to mischaracterize it all, painting herself as a victim. 

At the time she made her complaints, she had nothing but suspicions, nothing concrete with which to cast aspersions on him, except for the two emails he’d sent her, which she mischaracterized, omitting her part in any of it, acting as if she had done nothing. She had clearly been instigated to do it by someone else, someone she had not told the whole story to. She went to HR and to the police, and, in an interesting turn of events, told two different stories. The general gist of the stories was the same … and mostly untrue. But the details did not coincide. Professionals should have spotted it immediately, but, things being what they were and the area being trapped in a time long gone, added to by the zeitgeist of the times, she was simply believed, out of hand, no investigation. HR provably violated its own policies, the head being a self-involved nimrod who had never done any job they’d held there correctly. And she had another weapon—she cried. 

In disbelief at her dishonesty, her complete denial of any wrongdoing whatsoever, and fearing for his livelihood, he made his final mistake. Desperate to throw her off, to make her have second thoughts about what she was doing, he ramped up his alter ego and became nasty. It was stupid. It was short-sighted. And it was illegal. But there was still nothing real in any of it. She had committed perjury, and she was being believed out of hand, though the evidence clearly showed that her story was suspect. He, at that time, saw no choice. And he was caught. 

Though her stories were inconsistent on their faces and those in charge did not have the evidence to make the charges they did, the great bastion of incompetency and power abuse determined that he would take the entire rap. It made no difference to them that she had made easily-demonstrated false statements. It made no difference to them that she had filed similar charges before against someone else, if they even knew of them or bothered to look. HR completely and premeditatedly ignored all evidence he presented, even later destroying it. The head violated every prescription they were sworn by law to follow and they belonged in jail, or, at least, to be banned from the field. The law had a solid case, though it still did not have the evidence for its heaviest charges and it willfully ignored mitigating evidence. She had still lied, pawned off a textbook story that someone else had likely given her. She claimed that she had told him numerous times to leave her alone. She never had. She claimed that he’d assaulted her with a profession of love, also untrue. She claimed, without a shred of evidence, that he was driving past her house. She had made it up. She claimed that she did not want his gifts, completely omitting that she had accepted them and physically shown him her gratitude with embraces, as well as messages. They never asked her how she‘d received them, and she likely would have lied about that too. She had, essentially, misrepresented everything that had occurred prior to the messages that had gotten him in trouble, and her stories were inconsistent, the one told to the police having been prepackaged. But he was not allowed to charge her with perjury. Only the cop she’d snowed with her tears could do that, but that cop was a mindless authoritarian who saw it as his job to protect the little woman, the little girl, regardless of the whole story. So, instead, he charged her, charged her for her behavior that had ostracized him, while she refused to leave him alone. It was a crime, period, and, if he had done it first, she would have been the one taking the fall. But he had hoped things would clear up on their own. He was not an attention-seeking asshole. But, given how things had turned out and her imperiousness, he charged her, and those charges issued. She was charged with the same thing he was. 

He had been removed from work for the charges against him, but, in a stunning lack of professionality and blatant bias, nothing was done to her. It was simply unbelievable. The hubris the head of HR showed was so illegal that it was amazing she wasn’t fired on the spot. But the higher ups at that time were bigots and sexists and they did nothing, even when informed that their HR was not following policy. It would lead to a lawsuit. However, for the time being, he was trapped in the system by her lies and his own stupidity. He had been guilty of a small part of it, no doubt, and he accepted that. But the penalties they were seeking were overbearing and unfair. So, even though they did not have the evidence they needed, he allowed his lawyer to convince him to accept a program. 

As if she had not done enough, seething with vengeance for slights she had brought upon herself and completely ignoring her own behavior, she, insanely, tried to lie to keep him out of it. He’d seen it in black and white. There was no low low enough for her to stoop to, bolstered by the support of people, everyone, who had no actual idea what had gone on. And, once he was enrolled, he filed against his employer for its egregious violations of the law. And he lost … but he didn’t. 

Unbeknownst to his former employer and the so-called judge, who had immediately, and un-Constitutionally, taken the part of the institution, he was being advised by one of the top discrimination lawyers in the county. Since he had had to hire a lawyer for the charges against him, he was unable to retain this lawyer. However, the lawyer, having seen the evidence, allowed him to hire him on an advisory basis at a fraction of the cost. If he had been able to hire the lawyer, the case would have been won hands down. However, he had been assured that, if the case made it to trial, he would see damage awards. They were guilty as hell, all on behalf of a woman who had not told them the whole truth and had ill-contextualized evidence. But because he lacked a lawyer, the judge saw his opportunity and parroted the shady opposition lawyer, who openly misstated things in court numerous times. The judge gave himself away. The judge tacitly admitted in open court to never having read the plaintiff’s briefs. This was demonstrable. But it made no difference. Though he had made his case and it was air tight, the judge dismissed it, holding him to an unreachable standard, at odds with the law, misciting precedent, and seemingly knowing that he could not afford to appeal. He had won, but he had been robbed of the victory. It was a blatant abuse of authority. The legal system was a joke at every level, and the people involved in it were corrupted by their own authority. 

In the meantime, he had almost completed the program and was eligible for early release. But, as if having invented most of her story, having played innocent when she was not, having baselessly and degenerately portrayed him as a danger to children, she lied to stop it. And she knew she lied. She professed it anonymously. After she had cost him early release and compounded his financial burden, as if permanently damaging his reputation was not enough, she sent him a card and roses. He was not a fool and discovered that it had been her with little effort. She knew she was guilty, but she would never admit to it. 

Finally, after more time than deserved, he was released and, not long after, the case against her was due in court. But he had had enough. He did not want to relive it again, and he knew that she would never admit to anything. Though she was guilty and he would have won the case easily, putting her in the same predicament he had been in no longer satiated him. He dismissed it. He did not do it for her. He did it for himself, but, being what she was, she did not even appreciate it. She was as delusional as she had accused him of being, completely convinced that she was the only one wronged. She had gotten away with metaphorical murder, and she basked in it. 

The complete story painted a different portrait than the one people had simply believed from her mouth, contrary to the evidence, contrary to common sense, and with no real investigation. It was proven in black and white that his side was truer than hers. He had everything she thought he would never see. But she continued to tell her tale of vengeance, whatever flash of conscience had overtaken her being short-lived and dying. She had told so many lies that it became incumbent upon her to lie more, and, now, she had likely convinced herself of everything that she said, everything she added, everything she had ill-framed on purpose. She was forever the victim, though she victimized herself. He had been guilty and knew it, and he paid for it. But she knew she was guilty too, yet she paid for nothing and scorned him for her own guilt. 

So who was this woman? In short, no one. Whoever she may have been at one time in her life had been relegated to the deepest recesses of her mind and heart. She was only what opinions and beliefs she was given by those who controlled her life. She lived in a cage, but it was a cage of her own making, being used and manipulated without realizing it, allowing her identity to be stripped away for things. She was wholly consumed with trying to relive high school forever, with people she knew that she didn’t even know anymore. The affiliation was all that mattered. As coarse as it was to say, it was simply true that she was her group’s tramp, and she was content to be passed around, to choose or be chosen by the same ugly man over and over again, only with a different name, to be snapped at and obey like a dog when they had fucked up their own lives and needed a replacement. She had chosen that herself. She had called him materialistic, but it was the very men she kept around who epitomized it and, though she publicly chastised them for it behind their backs, it was nothing but virtue signaling. They were what she sought. They were the perpetual children who bought life-sized Hot Wheels and thought their connection-facilitated wealth made them men. They were perverse, but so was she. And she now granted her attention to the one who most resembled him, whom she should not be granting anything because it was sick. The transference was pathological, but it showed what she kept hidden, what she knew she had given up, just as the roses had. 

But her answer to what she had done was simple—to ignore it, to run from it forever. And that would have been understandable, if she had been innocent. But she was not. It would have been understandable for her to destroy his memory, if she had been innocent. But she did not and she was not. Since the roses, she had had people call his house. And she was still telling her fairy tale to whomever would listen, as was proven by a recent attack on his car, smashing his grill. It didn’t matter if she hadn’t asked anyone to do it or if she knew nothing about it. Just as she had given impetus to the sleaze who had sent her the vile email, so she still gave impetus to her emotionally-stunted friends. But she would not relent. She would not be honest with him, with herself, or with anyone else, and that made her vile. 

So all he could do was write, and tell his side forever, a side that had been consistent from the start, unlike hers. He would write books she would never read—from lack of curiosity, the intellectual laziness she had adopted from her friends, but mostly just out of spite, refusing to give in an ounce on anything, knowing it would show her guilt if she did. She chose to live a lie, and she would spend the rest of her life pretending for other people … when she had never had to. She sought vengeance against him for rejecting her, after she had rejected him. If she wanted to hate him forever, it made no difference. But he was not whom she should have hated. She should have hated herself, and what she had allowed herself to become for other people. No person who valued themselves at all would choose to be a dog instead of someone’s moon. But she had done just that … and would never concede the truth of it. 

She waited to sell herself to another “friend.”