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.