Distant Thoughts

Night Terrors

Sometimes I wish you had never gone to high school. We all warned you. Your mother, your grandparents, your sisters and your brothers. My mother, my grandparents, and I all warned you. You still changed. You still turned into someone you aren't.

You picked football over me. You picked all those girls falling in line behind you, over me. You chose an endless string of whores over someone who would be with you consistently. Someone who knows the turmoil in your home and in your head. Someone who actually cares. Someone who listens.

You picked her over me. She's not just your friend and I know it. I hope she's fun, because you lost me. Someone who deserves way more than you gave me.

You gave me pain and you gave me lies. You ruined me, and now I am left to pick up the shattered pieces of me. You told me you would always be there, picking up the broken glass. You said you didn't care when your fingers bled as you tried to hold me together. You told me you loved me. You told me you would never leave.

Every word you ever said to me was a lie, except all those times you told me you wanted me in your bed. I'm glad I never got in it, I'm glad I never took my clothes off and let you see what the world has done to me. I'm glad you've never seen all the scars and the bruises.

When he took everything I had that day almost two years ago, you did not even talk to me. For months, I told no one. Not even when I thought I was carrying his demon spawn. You told me you would have raised it with me like your own. Was that a lie too?

When I first told you, you cried. You punched walls and you tried to hold me but I flinched away.

My English teacher saw me come in with my knuckles bruised and bloody. He loud capped the class and said, "Quit messing with her. Have you not seen her come in with her knuckles bleeding? She is not afraid to hit things and she is not afraid to hit you." I wish I had hit you. I wished I had balled my fist and put every ounce of strength I had into the side of your jaw. I wish I had left you on the floor, holding your face. I wish I had done it when you told me I was nothing but a slut.

First of all, I don't condone cheating. I don't know why I did it to you. It wasn't really cheating, even. You flipped out anyway and you made me cry for weeks. You turned me and my best friend against each other.

I will never forgive you for that. Especially when you started flirting with my best friend behind my back. She was mine. She still IS mine. You had no right to even SPEAK to her.

Second of all, all those times you told me about the girls at your school. Telling you to leave me, kissing you. I have no reason to believe that you did nothing to provoke them. You're nothing but a liar.

Third, I'd like to say that you've lost the best thing you could have had. We could have settled down and made a family. We could have raised our kids better than we had been. But you threw me away. For a toy ball and a string of whores drooling after it.

Fourth, I'll never forgive the times that you weren't there. The nights I stayed up crying, wishing you were there. The mornings before school that I spent checking every entrance to my home and every hiding place, making sure he wasn't there. I'll never forgive the times you told me to calm down, to shut up, to forget about it. That it was just a dream and it wasn't real.

IT WAS REAL. IT WAS REAL ONCE. NOW, EVERY NIGHT, IT COMES BACK AND IT IS REAL AGAIN.

I passed out today, out cold on the kitchen tiles. I woke up and I mouthed the letters to your name, thinking we were still together. We are not. We will never be again. How long before I stop waking up after hitting the ground and calling your name?

I will never tell anyone this. Not you, not my friends. I can't bring myself to speak to words out loud.

"He stole everything from me, and now he stares me in the face while he kisses my sister."

But you've forgotten all about that, haven't you?