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He is a man, a stranger, with dark hair, deer brown eyes and a dangerous smile that lights you up like birthday candles. You meet him when you least expect it, when you are particularly vulnerable and craving some type of reassurance that you are beautiful and worthy. From the first sight of him, you know that he is the only person in this world and in your life that you will ever truly love.
In the beginning, when you are dizzy, weak and unsuspecting, his meticulous plan to ruin your life is something you are oblivious to. But he knows what he is doing. Like a symphony, he has the entire thing orchestrated and you are only an instrument. That is why, when you are in that common senseless state and you are seeing the world through eyes of bliss and love songs, he says the rights things to you, opens every door, shows interest in your life and your passions and spends hours pleasing you beyond waves of ecstasy. It is all part of his plan.
There are so many things to love about him. He remembers your birthday, the words to your favorite song, the date and hour your first met, your mother’s maiden name and all the things in the world that you secretly desire. He takes you to hilltops at midnight to look at the city sparkling below. He takes you to places from his past, telling you stories for each one of them. He talks about the children he wants to raise with you, naming them and giving them life before they are born. He talks about the dream house in places like Arroyo Grande, California and summer trips to places like South Carolina and Russia and you mention Paris and his eyes dance in an exotic and wistful melody with yours. He tells you that you are pretty, you are funny, you are smart, you are invincible and most importantly, you are his. He talks about spending the rest of his life with you and no matter what, he would never, never hurt you.
The sound of his velvet voice, especially when he whispers your name, is intoxicating, reeling and leaves you trembling with urgency. When he holds your hand or kisses your cheek, you feel your heart turn away from all that you have ever known or trusted and instead you convince yourself to follow him wherever he wants you to go. You do not question. You do not judge. You do not suspect a thing. When he beckons, the thrill of uncertainty, rushes through you like sugar. In this newfound high, clarity and reason are shoved aside to make room for adventures and rendezvous. He challenges you to do things that you have always believed to be immoral, perverse or frightening. He convinces you to do, say and feel things that you swore you would never do. But you do them all. Just to please him. Because making him happy is the only thing worth living for now.
Slowly, you say “we” where you used to say “I” and you refer to him as “the best boyfriend I have ever had”, “the greatest guy in the world”, “he’s so different from the others” and finally, and foolishly, “the best thing that has ever happened to me”. In return, and as part of his plan to consume you, he says words like “forever”, “trust me”, “I will always be here for you” and “of course I would never cheat on you”. You watch his mouth say the words, not noticing the deliberation or his self-serving motivations. You don’t catch that slight twitch in his left eyelid, which is his silent confession to the brutality that actually sleeps in his heart. You believe what he says to be the truth because you have been led to believe that no one really lies.
Without any explanation, the words he says to you start to sound harsh and cruel. When you weep, he calls you “a cry baby”. When you show excitement, he says you are “melodramatic” or “too emotional” or “neurotic” or “insane”. When you exaggerate the truth to spare someone’s feelings, he tells you that “you lie to everyone you know”. When you try to express to him your concerns, your feelings, your opinion, he brushes it off with a roll of his eyes and an exasperated “Here we go again”.
You beg for any type of affection or attention, just to be assured that he stills find you beautiful and desirable and all the things that he told you once that you were. But he pushes you aside or wants you to wait until the commercial break or says the all-too-familiar words “Can’t we talk about this later? I’m tired. It’s been a long day”. When you become desperate, feeling ugly, worthless and not of any importance to him anymore, you take your clothes off and present yourself to him, naked and he says “Not now. I don’t want to. It’s just not the same anymore. I mean, what’s the point if it isn’t going to lead to anything more?” You dress again, pulling layers and layers of rejection and humiliation over your unkissed and untouched skin.
In the midst of your realization that he is not what he once appeared to be, you justify his behavior. You defend his actions to your friends. You deny the intervention of those that know you and care and those that are capable of seeing him for the monster that he really is. You question yourself, placing blame on your own faults. “What did I do wrong?”, “Maybe if I was prettier”, “Maybe I ask too much of him” and “How can I be better?” He offers you no answers, no advice or comfort. Instead, he smirks and laughs to himself, enjoying the matinee of your heartbreaking performance, pleased with himself that he is the sole purpose and cause of your misery and your failed attempts.
In the truth of it all, he does not know what it means to love another person. He only knows and seeks the instant gratification of a fifteen minute skin trade in which he is in control and is the dominating force and the sole receiver of pleasure as he pounds and penetrates and permeates another pitiful soul. You shouldn’t be surprised. After all, wasn’t he the one who told you that every attractive person he sees, he at once imagines them naked? Wasn’t he the one who told you that you were paranoid, distrustful and “worried about nothing”? Wasn’t he the one who told you that the two of you were “sexually incompatible” and called you names like “prude” and “old fashioned” and accused you of “always being the victim” or “trying to always appear to be the good one”. He cites specific examples, mostly when you were showing your feelings whether they were concern or rage, and he says that the problems in the relationship and the sudden void of love is your fault and never his. The downfall and destruction of the relationship was of your doing, not his. By this time, you are so convinced that you everything is indeed your fault, you lose sight of the looming truth. You are the good one. And you always will be.
In the end, before the death of your innocence, the destruction of your planned future and the criminal invasion of your soul, he moves in for the kill. He disproves every word he has spoken and every promise he has ever made, proving to you once again that true love does not really exist anymore. He belittles you. He disrespects you. He lies to you. He cheats on you with a close friend. And not once do you question the change until it is too late and you no longer know your name.
For comfort, know this, that one-day, he will realize all that you offered. When he is twenty years older, forty pounds heavier and silenced when there is no one there to listen to his self-indulgence and ego stroking, he will miss you and he will hang his head in shame. You, in return, will be dancing in Paris, living in a dream house in Arroyo Grande, counting the accolades from your brilliant career and find yourself surrounded with white carnations, poetry and unspeakable bliss. And you will be blessed with love. For, without or without him, you are love and he is blind and the loss will be eternally his.
