My short story's

Asshole

i never believed the whole "the devil was once god's favorite" idea, or that the villain in reality doesn't come dressed in a cape, he comes as everything you could ever want.
i always just assumed you could tell the bad people from the good.
i always thought i could read people well enough, to know who deserved the benefit of the doubt, or who just didn't deserve the time of day.
i couldn't have been more wrong.
we were kids and he was good and innocent and sweet and i don't know how much of that was real, if any of it.
but things got messy, and hard and i thought it was just that. messy and hard. and to a certain extent, maybe it was.
but he made a choice, he made the choice to be with someone else. he made the choice to do that but still not let go of me.
and i thought it was just history and memories, keeping him attached.
but it was lust and greed and selfishness. it was ego and pride.
he loved knowing i still cared, i still had feelings for him, i hadn't been with anyone else.
he loved knowing he was the only boy in my life, he loved knowing he'd defined my experiences.
he loved knowing he was the reason i made certain decisions, or had certain habits.
he loved knowing he had some sort of power over me.
it was lust and greed and selfishness. it was ego and pride.
he made the choice to be with someone else, and once he watched me learn to live without him,
he made his way back and did just enough to get me hooked again
he knew what made me tick, he knew what i was addicted to and he used every single one of my weaknesses against me
everyone around me told me he was toxic but i refused to believe that the boy i'd fallen in love with wasn't in there somewhere.
i wanted to believe that i could have the fairytale i wanted
i wanted to believe i could be one of the 5 people in every thousand who end up with their high school boyfriend
i knew i was being naive, but i wanted to take a chance anyways.
i wanted to believe we had a real chance at being together, against all odds
i wanted to believe in the whole it's us against the world idea
i wanted to believe he was the one for me, that we would have to go through hell and high water but that we'd find a way back to each other at some point
i wanted to believe that all this hurt would be worth it in the end
i wanted to believe that the boy who basically saved my life, could be mine forever.
but it was lust and greed and selfishness. it was ego and pride.
he lied to me and to the girl he is supposedly in love with
he played me and he played her. more than once.
and looking back, i feel so stupid for believing him. i feel disgusted at the thought of ever being so unconditionally and pathetically in love with someone like that.
i gave him everything i had and i never got anything in return. he hurt me so many times, and always justified his actions with "i don't mean to". he makes himself the victim of his own mistakes, saying he's so fucked up that he can't handle consequences. he makes you pity him. he makes you want to console him, instead of it being the other way around. that's what an abusive relationship is.
i saw it coming the last time, but he said all the right things and i wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, i wanted to believe a part of him really did love me, and that he was still a good person at heart. i saw it coming, but it shook me nonetheless.
i never thought he could be someone who would purposefully hurt me.
i never thought he could do something so casually cruel.
because villain doesn't come dressed in a cape, he comes as everything you could ever want. i never believed it, until now.
your prince charming is an abusive asshole.