I always knew what you were doing. Even when you thought you were being extra-fucking sneaky about it, I always knew. Haha. It’s sad, really. I knew, I just never said anything. Wanna know why? I was afraid. Can you believe it? Afraid. Afraid you leave me. As if you leaving me would be the end of the world……It would. You were the sun, and I revolved around you. And like the sun, you gave me a reason to live. You sustained me. At night I’d lay in my bed and thank every deity in the world for you, for someone, for someone special. Because you were truly special to me.

And even as you were hurting me, as you were forcing me to do things I never wanted or thought I could bring myself to do (just for you, my darling), I loved you. It was funny how all that emotion bubbled inside of me, bubbled over and blinded me of the cold hard truth. Which was, essentially, that you didn’t care about me, at all. You didn’t give a rat’s ass. If I died, you probably wouldn’t bat an eye. I was just there, I was just convenient, it wasn’t the love you wanted, it was the sex.

And for me, it was the security. It was the joy of knowing that someone out there wanted me. You knew this. You fed off of my insecurity, and when I begged you to stop, when I cried out no, you pointed out that you were the only one who’d ever want it from me, who’d ever wanted it. And with words, and gestures, and the subtlest of subtleties, you broke my spirit. And I, like the naïve little girl I was, took it. Because this was love. This was the real thing, baby.

Fuck mom and dad, who were just too ancient and heartless to understand what it was like to be young and in love. Fuck my friends, who were so jealous they hissed lies about you in my ears, things so grotesque they made me cry. Fuck everyone and everything. It was just me and you, us against the world. I’ll never forget the night I finally realized what an idiot I had been, the night the veil was slowly lifted from my eyes.

It was the night you almost killed me.

Blood streaming from a gash on the side of my head, my lips swollen to twice their size, my eyes black and blue and you never getting tired, never giving up your endless assault. And her sitting there on the edge of the bed, watching with the most passive expression on her face as you beat me to a pulp, naked and sweaty with venom spewing from your lips. I truly can’t believe it took that to open my eyes. Can’t believe it took four weeks in a hospital bed, breathing in stale air and eating stale food, having to endure the pitiful looks my parents and friends gave me. But I’m so glad that I realized it then, then before it was too late. So I want to say a final goodbye, and let you know that I can forgive, and I can forget, but I won’t.