Teach Me How To Be Loved

It’s a horrible misconception, the idea that the one you love is the one who treats you the best. The one who will always be there to catch you when you fall. To pick you up, dust you off and help you walk again. Except they’re not. Not always. Sometimes you fall in love with someone who is entirely wrong for you. but you’re too in love with them to see it. They fool you with their smiles, their promises that turn to lies. And suddenly, the person you thought the world of becomes the person who destroys you. They take everything you are and tear it to shreds. 

And the most sickening thing is that you let them do it. Because you love them. Because you’ll do anything to make them stay. Because they’ve convinced you somehow that you need them. Even if your entire being is screaming at you that it’s wrong, you don’t listen. Love is a manipulative force. It can destroy someone beyond repair. 

And didn‘t Pippa Merrett know it.  

As she lay on her back with her legs apart, she knew deep down that the guy on top of her didn’t love her. She’d known it for a long time. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave him because, like many other girls out there, she was convinced that she needed him to survive. She needed him like the air she breathed. She would do anything to keep him with her, even if that meant allowing herself to be used like an unpaid prostitute. And if someone you love uses you like that, then it must be okay because surely they love you back.

Surely? 

When he finished with her, he just rolled off of her and closed his eyes. No loving words. No cuddle. Nothing. Pippa turned away with tears in her eyes and gazed at an old picture of them on the wall. It had been taken at their College Award Ceremony. They stood together with their arms wrapped round each other, smiling brilliantly at the camera. Everything had been so wonderful then. They had been so happy. But not anymore. Now Pippa was just a body. An object. Her thoughts and feelings no longer mattered to the boy who lay next to her. It was like he’d forgotten everything.

And still she loved him.

Though she no longer understood why. 

Watching someone you care about get their heartbroken time and time again is just as draining on the soul as having it happen to you. Jace Cooper sat on the edge of his sister’s bed, feeling useless and helpless as she cried into his lap. Again. He held her tightly. Just moments before, he’d walked into her room to find her pulling a razor blade across the delicate skin of her wrists. He’d seen the scarlet droplets of blood trickle down her hands and had felt fear more terrible than any he’d experienced before. Before he knew what he was doing, he had wrestled the blade from her and pulled her close to him. He’d held her as she screamed at him to let him kill herself. He’d sat there, holding on to her tightly as he stared forwards in a dead stare. Eventually, her screams had turned to tears and she went limp in his arms as she cried. This was something no brother should have to witness. The sight of his own sister trying to end her life. It wasn’t the first time this had happened and it wouldn’t be the last either. And he knew it was because her “boyfriend” had broken her heart again. He knew she blamed herself, even if he didn’t understand why. 

And it killed him to know that there was nothing he could do.

Nothing he could say would make it go away. All he could do was sit and hold her.   

And he vowed that he would never give someone that kind of power over him.

He would never fall in love. 

It just wasn't worth it.