What I Was Until You Cheated

It wasn’t easy to tell you that I couldn’t anymore. In fact it was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. I have never been good with the words “no,” and “enough.” And the taste of them were as bitter for me as they were for you. Maybe a little more for me.

I didn’t understand how truly selfish you were, not until I said I just can’t anymore. Not until I said I won’t anymore. Not until I said I don’t anymore. I thought calling you a narcissist was all a part of some silly game we played. I thought you were really thoughtful deep down inside. I know now that I implanted that seed of hope inside of myself—in the deep dark recesses of my mind. Because that narcissism was real and I only imagined it away sometimes.

I didn’t want to let go. I fought to hold on for so long. But there was always the question of, “What if…” There was always this nagging doubt in my mind. There was always the, “maybe…” And the maybe got the best of me. The maybe won. The maybe made me ask if that narcissism given the right circumstances could turn into something even uglier.

I am an inferior creature. No one knows that better than me. And I accept it. But I believed you when you said I was exceptional. I believed your kisses, though I had to ask for them. I believed your love, though I’d bought it. I believed your smiles though they weren’t for or from me. You were always riding a high and the high wasn’t love or affection for me. I was just the woman that helped you keep a supply.

I should have known when I had to fight for every touch, for every caress. I felt so pathetic and used up and useless with you. I blamed myself. I am fat, I am ugly, there’s nothing attractive about me. You wanted me to be slim. You said if I was thin you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off of me. It was easy to keep your hands off of me. You didn’t mind me touching you though, to use my ugly man hands to rub your aching body. To touch you intimately just so you could slide into my mouth. You never rejected my kisses there. No.

I don’t know much of love. I may never know much of it. But I know now that it isn’t supposed to hurt. It isn’t supposed to make me feel like my world is crashing down around me. It isn’t supposed to feel like I am dying little by little.

Love is supposed to be this transcendent thing…It’s supposed to make you feel like you could fly even without wings. Maybe that’s a little dramatic. I deal in hyperbole. I’m a writer—I will always take things from one extreme to the other. I did it with you. I made you up to be this big, wonderful, gorgeous thing that would rescue me from myself. You didn’t. You turned me into something ugly. No…I turned myself into something ugly.

It’s over now. And you still call and you try to convince me to come back. You tell me how much you need me as if I am obligated to care for you for the rest of eternity. I told you once that I would. And if it hadn’t been for her I would have. Infidelity is an ugly thing. But this time it was my release from hell. You set me free when you tasted her lips instead of my own. You set me free when you loved her as you could never love me. I was this used up thing until you cheated on me.