Forgetters, Leavers, and Complainers

Plan Part B

You know what's funny? I thought she might be the one to save me. Isn't that crazy, that we truly believe another human being could save us from ourselves? But, you see, I was foolish back then, just like Corey. I thought she was different. I thought she would never leave, forget, or complain. I was wrong.

Her name was Lily. Her smile was melting glass. Her eyes gold-rimmed chocolate. To my stupid, sophomore brain, she was every cliche brought to life. I thought she was walking perfection. Again, I was wrong.

We met in my poetry class; rather, she begged for my help to pass our poetry class. Her lack of appreciation for poetry should have warned me, but I was oblivious. I am the only reason she got a C in that class and she is the only reason that I cried over something beyond my illness.

They say that if you taste love once, you're lucky, but they don't take into account all of the people like me who have loved but not been loved in return. I assure you, I do not feel lucky. I loved her. I gave her the only gift I could--I wrote poetry about her. I haven't been able to pick up a pen since we broke up. Perhaps it's good that I'm not in college right now.

I fell in love on October 3rd of my freshman year. She broke my fall for ten months and thirteen days and then let me fall the rest of the way to the ground. I fell in love with the way her nose wrinkled when she smiled, her overflowing bookshelves, and her unflagging perseverance. She went after what she wanted until she got it. That's how I know she never wanted me.

Lily wanted to be a prosecuting attorney. She was sharp like a knife. Her clothing was sharp, all blacks and whites and heels and blazers. Her words were sharp, direct, cutting. Her mind was even sharper. She was strength and drive. I was vulnerability and emotion. But not any more.

I thought she was strong enough to love me. She could have been--that's the hardest part. She could have been, but she chose not to love me.

I am standing outside of her office--she works for the district attorney as an analyst. When I think about her, Lily, the girl I fell in love with, I realize I haven't fully recovered from what she did to me. She needs to understand my pain.

You see, I'm not avenging physical pain. They don't need to feel the faintness, the exhaustion, the aches. I suppose the physical pain was not the worst part of my chronic illness. I'm avenging the emotional pain--the pain of being left behind by those you hold most dear.

Lily didn't just break up with me. She hurt me in countless ways before finally deserting me. She complained. Complained about my illness, complained about my fatigue, complained about my pain. She complained when I couldn't go with her to the party at the company she was interning with. She complained when I couldn't go out for drinks with her and her friends. She complained when I was in the hospital and she had to visit me. She complained about my pain.

I don't hate her for not loving me--no, I swear, I don't. I hate her for making me feel guilty about my illness. She was the complainer.

How will I get my revenge? In the same way I forced Corey to his knees in tears. I know her secrets.

I think because I'm exhausted all the time, people assume that I don't see things or remember them or understand them. I do. I remember everything. I remember the snide comments and the judgmental looks and the eye rolls. And I remember what Lily tried to hide.

Lily majored in political science; she graduated in three years, in typical Lily style, and now she's working at the district attorney's office while saving up for law school. While in college, she was nominated to take place in a huge mock trial. The trial was solving a robbery on campus, and so she had to try to find real evidence to convict the defendant. This trial was what got her summa cum laude. It got her a job. It got her a reputation as one of the up and coming pre-law students in the state. It was a lie.

She falsified evidence.

She stole a sample of DNA via a hair follicle from the defendant and planted it in the purse of the woman who was robbed. She falsified the evidence, won the trial, and left me behind.

Again, I stand outside with an unmarked envelope in my hand.

Lily isn't at work today; her Facebook page says she's visiting her hometown for her mother's birthday. Nineteen days after the first name was marked off my list, I will make Lily feel my pain. I will take away what she loves. Leave her with nothing.

I step inside the office, offer a polite smile to the secretary, and simply say, "For the district attorney. It concerns Lily Aarons."

I hope Lily looks at the surveillance tape of the office and sees my face, that she sees that I could watch her downfall, unperturbed. I hope I looked victorious.

That evening, I sit in my car again. I watch as everything she holds dear crumbles to pieces. She is in her high rise apartment. I can only see her silhouette through the window. She gets a call. She melts--no, she shatters. 

I smile a little. I would tell her it's poetic justice, but she never understood poetry anyway.