Something was wrong with this place, with many of these people, an underlying infantilism that was lacking in most of the places that he had lived. It was cultural and insidious. A friend of his in school, who had grown up in the area, had once remarked that people out here, even with their education and money, were dumber. But he had been wrong. They weren't any dumber than the rest of the country. It was a product of unearned privilege, of family money and connections, that had stunted their emotional growth and made them think far too highly of themselves. And, like a fool, he had begun to believe that he could fit in here. But he had been raised around people with real concerns, people who had to grow up too fast, those who did not have things handed to them. If someone from where he had grown up had been arrogant, cruel, perverse, it was because that's what they were. Yet, here, it seemed to be a common product of entitlement ... and boredom. With all the cheating going on, it was likely half the population was related to itself, and they did it simply because they felt they had the right to do it. The divorce rate was staggering. The same could be said for scamming. It was a blue moon where he had come from in which someone would be publicly charged with major fraud,, but here it was a weekly event. And they all covered it up with their SUV's, big houses, nuclear families and "family," green lawns, church, and the facade of the American Dream. It was like a 1950s sit-com on angel dust. The church thing was almost hysterical, as a bigger nest of hypocritical and heretical vipers would be hard to find.    

This was her world. It was what made her. And he had been stupid enough to believe that there had been an affinity between them. The fact was that, if she had moved to where he had lived, there no doubt would have been, as the trappings of the world she knew did not exist there and she would have been forced to interact on her own merits, sincerely. But she had conned him good, in that "aren't we such wonderful people" way. There was nothing to it, empty bromides. 

She had rejected him out of hand. Though she would, she could not claim he was unattractive, although he never thought about looks. He had been with women who, to their credit and his, could have been high-end models. He'd been with smart women and not-so=smart women. She may have been considered a catch once upon a time, but she knew those days had passed and she had no business judging anyone on looks in any case, as she chose ugly, as in "is that person fucking inbred" ugly. She was far out of the league of the men she chose, speaking to the insidiousness of the area and how it trapped people in cages of social expectations ... and beat down their common sense and self-esteem. 

She painted him as mentally unstable and tried to convince others of it. It was a product of her own instability. He had never been accused of anything like it in his life, until he had come here, but she was believed out of hand because that's what passed for friendship - enabling and judging. She had given herself over to the worst that this environment could produce and had suffered for it. She had married a certifiable emotional infant, a complete con man. The man was completely full of shit, but that seemed to be par for course here. But it was what she was supposed to do, and she was hardly sober herself in that regard, She accused him of being immature. The irony was thick. She spoke in grade school language and cried whenever she didn't get her way. She claimed that he was angry all the time, confrontational, but he was only defending himself from the group thuggery of tribalism, and he had never been confrontational with her. One time, she had gone so far, in her spoiled, childish petulance, to tell him that his work experience wasn't real. If he'd been confrontational, she could have bet her ass that would have provoked it. He should have known then how full of shit she was. 

She then crossed the line. She, in her phony "nice person" bullshit had made him think she was genuine. But she was the deceiver of all deceivers, and gossiped like a twelve year old about him. Then she turned on him. Get this! She turned on him for being nice to her. That was the crux of the issue. This woman, who had been alone for a decade, this neurotic mess, had to come up with some excuse for why he was bad. He had been nice to her, tried to be her friend, and she had, in her cultural illness, decided that it made him unbearable. She had had no real reason to reject him. There were no strings attached to his affections. He would even have consented to fulfilling her sexually, with no commitment, even in secret. But she did it because he wasn't "respectable," meaning he did not have enough money. That was it. That was all her life revolved around, concerning things romantic. A man had to have money. It didn't matter if he was a rank piece of shit, a liar, an abuser, a con man, a fake Christian, the worst of malignant narcissists, which is how they generally got their money. None of that mattered, as long as they were outwardly respectable and well-off. That's what she had been taught: an emotional infant with an expensive car was a "man." She likely knew what that made her, or she was smart enough to figure it out, but, as it was the cultural norm, she followed it, senselessly. She had been on her own for years. She knew she did not need a man to support her. It was simply a sad fact. She wanted to be bought. She even tacitly admitted as much when she had seriously undervalued the gifts he'd given her. They weren't diamonds, so they were worthless. She damn well knew it too.               

Then she lied. She lied grossly, to ruin him. She turned everything on its had, proffering her gossip as proof, when she had never said anything to him. And she played upon that rancid tribalism. He knew damn well that she had been pressured into it, pressured by the people she'd been lying to about him. They didn't know any better. She'd never told them everything. She especially never told them how she'd chased him once he'd let her go.  She would claim it as because she didn't want things to be awkward. Given what she'd accused him of, there was no way she could square that in her mind and remain sane. But that's how the culture was, hypocritical. In fact, if he friends weren't just like that, they would have steered her toward him, or at lest away from the men they threw her to. 

And now she had struck again, her lies anyway. She had robbed him of a victory that was a given on its face. Her dogs, those she'd sicced on him, had broken every law they could. But they were going to get off, just as she had gotten off for her dishonesty. This place was fucked, completely corrupt, and she was a disaster of a person who found the worst of the worst, every time. But time would catch up with her. She would sink herself with her own shitty choices, and still think she was some kind of princess in the process. She wasn't a good person to anyone who was not in her group, afflicted with the same mentality. In fact, no one outside her little group, or the men they pushed at her, ensuring they were walking disasters, existed to her. 

She shit on love, shit on friendship, and shit on him. Then she had others shit on him. She was wretched, and she was so by choice. It had all been a conscious decision, fostered by lame people who never bothered to ask for the full story. She had gotten off scot free ... at least until Fate caught her. 

But her one remaining problem was, he did exist for her, and that was a conflict in her mind. She could feign being over it as long as she lived, but he was still there. She knew she'd lied. She knew she'd left him for her dogs. Unless she was a complete psychopath, or had been turned into one by her past, she could not block him out. She knew what she'd done. 

The only question was which path would she ultimately decide to take: honesty and self-esteem or continue down the path of self-abasement and role playing. He knew it would be the shitty one. That's who she was.