Sometimes I read stories about long lost loves or people that played together as children who find each other and end up together. That is not how my long lost story unfolded. I am embarrassed to this day, I am ashamed of this thing that happened to me. I never speak of it and I have never written about it because I believe he still comes here to read my writing, I believe he thinks I write about him when I am really writing about people I have really loved. I worry that whatever I write will anger him and he will kill me. I worry he will kill himself and try to make me watch it. I don’t know exactly what his mind would do in response to my writing but I expect it would be terrible. He found me after 20+ years of not seeing each other, not knowing one single thing about each other… He found me just to hurt me. For no other reason than I popped into his mind one day, the 14 year old girl he’d meet one summer. I had lied and told him I was older, he broke up with me when he found out and said he could never be with a liar… the irony is stifling since not one word he ever said to me was true after that. It’s easy to believe in someone pining for you for so many years, it makes it easy to overlook all the red flags and the obvious dangers. Looking back, that is what embarrasses me, the oversight, but not the fairytale, that part was so inherent to me, to see the good in others, to want to feel that connection. That part will never embarrass me, though I’m sure he desperately wants it to. Making me look stupid was his driving force, the dance of deception made him so happy, feel so powerful.
But.
I am powerful too.
I believe I saved other women from his ire while he was so focused on me. I believe he was at a breaking point, a desperate state when I took him in and cared for him so instantly. I don’t think he expected it. I think while he tried to use it and manipulate it and find every weakness I ever had, I don’t think he expected me too keep caring for him ass long as I did. And I believe he was on the cusp of doing something terrible to anyone because he was rejected and lonely and unlovable.
I loved the monster.
I know he was never loved that way before and he will never be loved that way again. I gave him mercy and compassion. While it was all a rouse on his part, I was genuine and warm and exceptional in my care for him. He would laugh and say I was a sucker, the best kind, because I was so naive, but I am a good person, the kind who would show mercy and compassion again and he can never take that from me. My life will be amazing and I will have all the things he will never have, except for that brief moment in time when he tricked a kind woman into caring for him. I’ll be that person all day. The trick is, I meant it, I gave freely of myself. And still do. He will think that is hilarious, that I’m a fool. But I gave him his one time in life when someone didn’t know how truly horrible he was inside. I am proud of being that person. He can also, never take that from me.
I remember the police officer who helped me first to file the report… He stopped and put down his papers and said… this is going to be incredibly hard now and I’m sorry for that, but you are very brave to be here and I can tell you don’t deserve any of this.
I was brave.
And I didn’t deserve any of it.
And to be honest, that was all I needed to hear to get through it. And it was hard. And there are no laws that protect us from this but my kind police officer found one that would help. And he went in front of a judge over and over so I wouldn’t have to. And he called me and told me everything that happened, even though he didn’t have to. And he changed my life, restored my faith. I focused on that when I was scared. I remembered that when I was unsure.
I also remember the 16 year old boy I knew who must have gone through some terrible things, whose mind is clearly not his own, who once I dug around…I found that he was not only alone but hated, and feared. I gave you one last moment of light. I don’t regret that. But my kindness does not extend to you anymore and it never will.