They say I’m a loner, and that may be true. I like the quiet peace you can only get in solitude. I treasure my time alone. Sitting in some park or garden, or out in the middle of nowhere.  Surrounded by people coming and going or by the creatures that live outside these concrete prisons we've built.  Never without company, but always alone.  Alone with my thoughts.  Alone with myself.  All the same, I enjoy the company of others, even if I am slow to let them get close.  I crave being near you just as much as I long to be away from you.

Then he came.  He said all the right things.  I didn't want him.  I didn't ask for his attention.  I craved it.  I needed it.  I longed for it.  He was like a whirlwind bursting through my peaceful haven of healing.  He let himself in, drawing me to him so that I could not resist.  Without any encouragement from me, he pulled and tugged.  He offered me a dream, a job, a life outside of my quiet solitude.  After the first month of letting him in it was all done. I was starting a new life in a strange place, in a strange house, and in a strange bed.

He kissed me the very first night.  It never really mattered other than he wanted it and I saw no reason to deny it.  Not then.  I didn't hate him then.  He took to holding my hand in public.  Part of me was thrilled at the contact.  Part of me wanted to tell him to stop.  I think that he thought that I let him.  I didn't care if anyone saw.  He was pleased when he told his friends.  Our friends.

We went places with our friends.  We never went alone.  We didn't really go on dates.  He'd hold my hand or have his arm looped through mine.  People always looked at us.  Sometimes, I'd meet up with him for lunch when he was on break at work.  We must've looked really happy because the staff always stole glances in our direction and would grin.  We went shopping for a new bed with his other girlfriend.  She helped with the bed as a birthday present to him.  He was happy and gesturing wildly, pointing out designs and fabrics he liked and sitting in odd chairs.  She was enjoying herself as well.  So long as I was following behind and she didn't have to see me.  And I am always following behind.

I dislike shopping.  I dislike crowds.  I disliked him going off with her.  Yet he's my lover and he says he loves me.  I wondered about just going home, but I don't yet know my way around the place.  I didn't want to be there.  She didn't want me there either.  It made me want to be there even less.  I wandered around the store on my own, lost in my thoughts.  I eventually found them laughing and having a good time sitting on some chairs.  She wandered off in a huff every time he showed me attention.  Her hate felt like flames burning me.  I would have melted into the floor if I could have.

He talked constantly to fill the silences the first couple of weeks with him. I like being around people, but I suppose I’m shy. The silence doesn’t bother me. It obviously bothered him. He talked incessantly. He talked on and on about nothing, about no one. He tells jokes. He makes jokes. He teases. He was his own entertainment and he absolutely hated to be bored. I hate to be bored too, but I suppose I am better at amusing myself.

I missed my room.  The silence and the stillness. Everything had its place and everything was in its place. It was small. There wasn't much in it, but it was mine. I liked its silence. It was my haven of quiet solitude where I could sit peacefully and read. My escape from the world.  His room was always a mess.  While he went to work, I busied myself picking up his dirty laundry and placing them in the hamper until there was a full load and bringing his dishes to the kitchen and washing them.  Sometimes, he'd ask me to go with him and he would let me into the garden where I could find some measure of peace while I waited for him to finish working for the day.

As I said, he talked incessantly. I even answered him on occasion. I suppose you could say that was just encouraging him. He eventually withdrew.  Sucked into his computer and his affairs.  Whenever I wanted silence I would make himself scarce.  Whenever he disappeared into that on-line world of his, I made myself scarce.  He appreciated that. I hated him for it.  He didn’t even say anything when he came home from shopping that day and found me balled up on the mattress, too scared to move out of it, and too nervous to tell him why. He just crawled in beside me and held me until I was braver. He never told anyone. I never told him why and he never felt me flinch from his touch.  Normally I just go to sleep in there and when I wake up the panic’s gone. He held me all the way through it. He didn’t say anything. He never said one word.  That was the problem.  Worse than the cheating and the hurt.  He never said a single word.  Unless it was a lie or an excuse.  Always something to be forgotten in an instant.  To be repeated again and again.  He didn't know what he was doing to me.  He wouldn't listen.  He couldn't care.  I let him use me to preserve what I could.  When he told me he loved me, I acted suitably pleased and, for a while, he did the same.

I tried do be okay with it.  He was happy to fool around with the others.  You're supposed to want that for your lover.  You're supposed to want them to be happy.  The girl willing to sacrifice anything for her love.  Even her own happiness.  But she's supposed to be happy doing that so long as he is happy.  I tried, but I couldn't do it.  You're supposed to be happy with your lover.  He's supposed to want to do anything to make you happy too.  But he didn't care about me.

There were others who came and went.  I hated the way he acted.  I hated the way he couldn't talk about anything important.  I hated the people he paraded into his bed.  Our bed.  I hated the way he got defensive.  The way he blamed me for what he'd done.  I hated the constant stream of lies.  I hated him.  It was always an act.  He would act suitable pleased, or remorseful to try and keep me close.  When that no longer worked the act broke down into angry words and violent threats.

We shared his bed.  It was big enough for the two of us.  It didn't need to be more than that.  I didn't want it to be more than that.  I got more than I wanted.  I hated him.  Even still, it’s hard to lie in a bed with another warm human being when it’s cold and not curl up into them. Have you ever noticed that?

He eventually lived in his computer.  I slept alone, except for the life that was within.  The bed was cold and empty.  I didn't want to be there.  It had become a bed of lies and deceit.  The number of women and girls grew.  So did the number of secrets and lies.  When he did grace the bed with his presence, we slept apart.  But as the weather got colder I curled up into his warmth and so did he.  I didn't want it.  He dreamed that I was one of his girls on the other side of the country. He was warm and the room was so cold. He held me when the nightmares came, and I returned the favour. They were of him, but he didn't know that.  

He acted happy around others.  I tried to do the same for a while, but I know my smile wilted more and more over time.  He spoke of marriage to our friends and to me.  When we found out I was pregnant, I was petrified.  I didn't want to have a child with him.  I didn't want to bring a child into this nest of lies.  I couldn't bring myself to abort and he refused the idea of adoption.  After a while, he became comfortable with the idea and seemed happy.  He told our friends about it and we started looking into apartments as we thought about the country we should live in.  He looked happy when he told our friends and hugged me close.  I could barely manage a crumbling smile that failed to touch empty eyes.  He told everyone except the women and girls he paraded into our bed.  Things seemed to get better for a week only to become a living hell.

He withdrew into his world.  I slept alone in his bed with his child.  It wasn't my child anymore.  It was his.  It became too much.  I finally got him to listen to me, but it was too little too late.  He couldn't handle the idea that he might lose his girls trying to keep me and he went back to them after little more than a day, finally telling them that I was pregnant.

They say they think my problem was that I cared too much.  They're wrong.  I didn't care.  No, that wasn't it at all.  I couldn't care.  I didn't have it in me anymore.  My heart shattered.  I hated him.  The only thing that mattered was what he wanted.  I slipped further and further away from him and into my own black despair.  I started to become the doll he tried shaping me to be.  I hated him for that.

But then, I didn't really hate him.  Understand then that I didn't hate at all.  I couldn't care enough either way anymore.  I wanted to feel guilty.  I didn't care enough to feel guilty.  I knew I should, but I couldn't.  Not anymore.  I just let him use me.  I wanted to feel something, anything.  Hate.  Desire.  Hunger.  Anything.

He made himself sick with the stress he'd created through his affairs.  He could barely eat.  I lost my appetite completely.  Anything that went down came back up.  He grew concerned.  Told me I should eat.  Said it wasn't just me anymore.  I lost the child.  He didn't even care.  He was bothered by the loss of the child, but he expressed his relief to his mistresses throug the computer.  I didn't merit a trip to the hospital.  I didn't even merit 5 minutes of his time so long as they were there, on another computer.

I listened to songs and read stories about couples who fell apart after a trauma.  I couldn't put the stories down and I would listen to the songs on repeat until I could once more feel tears in my eyes.  I associated with them.  I started to claw my way back from the dark abyss that was looming over me.  I shared these things with him.  I wanted him to see.  I wanted him to understand how I felt and what his actions were doing to me.  He turned away from them in disgust and said that he hated people who did those things.  He hated people who lead double lives and cheated on their partners.  I guess he hated himself.

He continued his lies.  I would accept it when he lied to me.  When I was alone and had the chance, I would uncover the lie.  He always knew about it.  I didn't hide it.  He yelled at me.  He threatened me with violence and he blamed me.  His lies meant nothing.  That I found out about them behind his back meant everything.  I knew he was lying, I knew the danger, but I did it anyway.  I wanted him to hurt me, you see.  I wanted him to hurt me until I could feel.  I wanted him to hurt me as a reminder of what it was like to feel something so that I would not turn to that abyss and feel nothing.

I got a promise of understanding out of him.  He wouldn't fool around sexually anymore.  It took him less than an hour.  I left the room for five minutes to change for dinner.  When I came back, he was already undressed and playing with himself as he carressed her.  I left the room in anger.  I tried desperately to contain my tears.  He knew he'd done something wrong.  It didn't take him long to come down and find me.  Fully dressed.  I didn't say a word.  He didn't try to touch me when I refused to respond to him; refused to look at him.  He told me he was taking her out to dinner to apologize to her for what happened and he left.

My heart shattered once again.  Through the tears was the abyss.  It called out to me.  Cold and welcoming in its emptyness.  I reached out for it even as I sat at his desk and left him a note.  It wasn't like I had an interest in suicide.  It wasn't like I would outwardly seek to end my life.  I wouldn't do anything to stop my life from ending, but I wouldn't seek to end it.  He hated that about me.  He'd always tried to change my mind when we would talk about it.  He didn't understand why I would let myself go if something happened to me and there was some way I could live through it or with it.  He didn't understand why I wouldn't want to.  The abyss surrounded me.  I saw myself there.  Unable to care.  I didn't want to go there again.  I didn't want to be in that room with that bed.  I ran.  It started to rain, but I didn't care.  I ran to the park.  I stayed there for hours.  It started to pour.  People came over to me and asked me if I was alright.  I said I was.  They shouldn't worry.  Just go where it's dry.

He was back when I went back to the house, but she was gone.  I was thankful for that.  He was cold and distant as he stared at me.  I sat on the bed and huddled into myself.  He joined me and tried to hold me.  When I didn't respond, he back away and asked me questions.  I answered him matter of fact.  He asked me to show him my arm and I did.  He grew angry.  He wouldn't touch me.  He would barely look at me.  He wanted me to see how self-destructive I was.  He was angry.  He said he couldn't leave me alone anymore.  Said he should put me on suicide watch.  It's not like I'd tried to kill myself.  They weren't deep or near any arteries.  They were cat scratches and gone in less than a week.  It's not like I cut myself often.  It was the last.  I knew I should feel guilty, but I couldn't.  I knew he wanted me to.  I couldn't feel guilty over my reasons for my actions.  Not when I could feel the sting of the scratches under the rough fabric of my shirt.  I could feel.  When I'd sat down with the blade in my fingers and the abyss swallowing me up, I couldn't even feel that pain.  I never wanted to feel that again.  Not for anyone.  And that's why I'd cut.

What he did didn't matter.  I didn't matter.  All he saw was the results of his actions and the results were his excuse.  His actions never existed.  He didn't really care about what I'd done.  It was his excuse to fool around and ignore me.  It was just him and his computer.  There was another woman.  I started to talk to her and she knew nothing about me.  I talked to him about it and I slowly started to exist in his world again.

He started to call me love again.  Like he used to when he'd wanted to keep me around.  Telling me that I made him happy and that I was all he needed.  I'd try to smile, but I'm sure it was a dead thing.  It's hard to smile when you don't mean it.  Hard to be happy when you know it's all a lie.  To his mistresses, I was an annoyance he didn't know what to do with.  He didn't want me to leave yet though, so he called me love and he grinned back at my sad smiles.  He'd say I had a beautiful smile and would kiss me lightly.  Not everyone finds it so hard to act.

He would curl up behind me in bed.  The happy couple once more even though our waking hours were spent with hurt and arguments.  He did what he had to in order to keep me beside him.  I let him believe I wanted it.  I tried to want it.  I tried to accept him.  I never leaned back into his arms.  He would whisper things when he thought that I was asleep.  I never hinted that I was awake and he never hinted that he might know.  When he finally drifted off into sleep, I would allow myself to cry.  I didn't want this.  I didn't want to be there.

I always pretended to be asleep. He always let me. I cannot be sure if he knew I was pretending or not. I wasn't supposed to know.  We were happy, you see.  Happy to all the world.  Happy to everyone but his mistresses.  Happy.  Except that was a lie.

Little by little, the new lie fell apart.  We fell apart.  Everyone saw it.  Everyone watched it happen.  No one said a word.  No one knew what to do.  We all just let it happen.  I didn't want to go.  I didn't want to admit faillure.  I wanted things to work.

Except that he didn't care.