Forever
She looked at the photograph from her wedding. A small tear began to form in the corner of her eye and a lump began to swell in her throat. She remembered that day like it was yesterday, though it had only been two years before. She thought he loved her and it would be forever. She thought she was going to finally be happy. All the fairy stories she’d read, all the dreams she’d mustered up in her head growing up. She thought he was different than all the other men she had encountered before. She thought he loved her. She set the picture back down on the end table. The tears poured forth out of her like a storm that would never pass. The pain so sharp like a steel beam forever embedded into the center of her. Creating the wound from which she would never heal.
Her heart was broken.
Forever was just a fairy tale.
She glanced at the picture again. It was just a blurry mass through the tears. A square outline of run together watercolors, like a child’s painting left in the rain.
She cried more thinking how her love was used and thrown into the garbage. How worthless she was to the one man she adored and loved with all her heart.
The one man she trusted. The only man on the whole planet who’s opinion mattered to her. The only person whom she wanted and desired approval from. He did not love her. She thought he did. He did not accept her. He rejected her.
Was this all life is? One disappointment after another? Was she to live forever one pain to the next with only lulls of distress in-between? Was this Life? Was this all there is?
She began searching. Searching for an answer she knew she couldn’t decipher to a question she couldn’t phrase. Searching for a direction besides the one she was on. Searching for another emotion to feel, another way to see this, another way to think. Searching desperately for anything to stop this pain.
For a second her anguish turned to anger. She thought he was different, but they are all the same. They say they love you, they lie. Love is accepting, patient, and kind. If he loved her he would be with her. If he loved her he would help her through her problems not run away. Run away like a child. Her anger was fueled finally. Not like a man, who stands up and faces his problems. Not like a man who stands up and fights.
Her tears had stopped and rage had began to fill her. Where a steel beam had resided in her center now a fire of hate burned. Burning slowly churning within her. He said til death do we part, maybe it’s time for a funeral. The fire within her began fuel her thoughts and motivate her to feed it. Yes FEED it. Make it grow. End the pain, replace it with Hate.
She turned to his things and began to destroy them one by one.
Like he destroyed her.
Everything he cared about. Gone.
As he did to her.
She turned and glanced at sea of broken. Broken like her insides. Broken like her heart. She still felt no better, she was not done. She pulled his clothes out of the closets, out of the hampers. Off the floor in the bathroom where he left it to lay for days. She threw it all in the bathtub and lit it ablaze.
She stood numbly watching the fire burn, but the heat could not warm her. The pain was beginning to slowly creep back. There was nothing left of his to destroy. The walls began to grow black from the smoke.
Black like her dead heart.
The heart he broke.
She sat on the floor and watched the ashes glow in the black tub. It was all over. She hugged her legs to her, but she would find no comfort there. She knew she would never find comfort again. It was all a lie. All of it. There was no fairy tale ending. There is no reality called Love. Love does not exist.
It was actually freeing to accept it. It makes logical sense. Love is just a story like Santa Clause. Something we tell people to make them happy, but it’s not real. She used to believe it was real, but now she knew the truth. It was just lies, things people tell each other to get things. To do things for them. To manipulate. There was no such thing as Love.
If there was no such thing as Love, then was no such thing as Caring. In order to care about someone you have to love them. If Love is a lie then it’s true that nobody cares. Care is just a lie.
If this is all there is to life. Going from one disappointment to another, one failure to another. Nothing but pain and desperation. Nothing but loneliness. If Love is a lie, there is no reason to live. There is no warmth, no caring. She didn’t want to live in that world. Where no one cares for anyone, no one loves anyone.
She felt so alone. No one cares. No one cares she’s in pain. No one cares that she was in love, that she was capable of love. In a world where there is no Love. No one cares.
No one.
Especially not the man she married, the one she thought would love her forever.
Forever ended.
The steel beam was beginning to form in her center again. It was just a splinter now but in an hours time she would be back to tears. Tears that she knew would never stop as long as she breathed.
She could end her pain now and not have to go through it anymore. Her friends would tell her to pick up the pieces and move on. To find someone else, but why would she do this to herself again. Love isn’t real. There’s no sense in trying.
She felt calmer now. It was easy to open the medicine cabinet and grab the pills. After all, it was all a lie. Life was all a lie. Marriage. Love. All a lie.