Repetition Compulsion

2.

Sera:

When Sera first met Troy, they were at a typical college party. You know, the ones where there are no-in-betweens. The ones where everyone either gets:

a) black-out-drunk.

b) drunk enough to start running around naked for no reason

or

c) drunk enough to lose all self-respect and hook-up with that weird guy in their Psychology class who walks around barefoot, because "shoes hurt the ground" and they "don't wanna hurt the ground".

But Sera was the exception to the college party rule that night. She was neither drunk nor tipsy because she was there with her roommate Nahi Kim, and it was Sera's turn to be the sober friend. So instead of indulging in self destructing behavior like everyone else her age, Sera went upstairs, all the way up to the rooftop and sat there with a glass full of apple-juice, and a head full of dreams and then proceeded to stare at the stars in the sky.

She was in the middle of stargazing and daydreaming when Troy Gabriels appeared in front of her, seemingly from out of nowhere. He walked up to her, flashed her a lopsided smile, ran a hand through his greasy hair and said: "I've seen a lot of smiles tonight, but yours is different...yours looks a little broken...but boy oh boy, yours is the most beautiful, broken smile I have ever seen. I bet you would look even more beautiful with a non-broken smile though, and if you let me, I can fix it. I can fix the smile, and I can fix whatever is making you sad and broken and I can make you whole again."

That was the crappiest and cringiest pick-up line Sera had ever heard. Yet somehow, she managed to fall for it. Troy Gabriels himself was a very questionable and downright unlikeable person. With his greasy, curly hair, hazel eyes hidden behind round shaped glasses and a ridiculously well-defined body hidden under a grey turtleneck matched with striped chino's, he reminded Sera of a badly written character out of a movie or a book. But it was also one of those things where he was so bad, he was good. So good that for the rest of the night, Sera found herself giggling in high pitched tones, and throwing her head back in laughter even though none of his 'jokes' were actually that funny. She hated the way he sleeked his hair back and put one hand in his pocket whenever he was trying to flirt with her. She thought it was cocky,  arrogant and unnecessary. To put it lightly, on paper, Sera did not like anything about Troy. She found his whole entire existence to be quite cringey. Yet, she still found herself being drawn to him, slowly but surely, like a lamb to its slaughter.

Troy had a knack for knowing exactly what Sera wanted to hear in different situations and then telling it to her. So really, it was no wonder why Sera fell for him. The red flags were always there, but by the time Sera started to notice them, she was already too far gone. She had already allowed herself to dive in head first without thinking of a way out. Unfortunately for her, just shortly after that, the shit storm started.

Sera knew she had messed up, and had to get the hell out of that relationship before it killed her. But faith made her stay.

See, faith is kind of a bitch. Once you get a sense or an idea of how things could be—who someone could be, or how they could make you feel, you hold on to that image or idea of the person in your mind, and you manifest it and think about it so much, to the point where it actually starts to feel possible, real and realistic.

And that's exactly what Sera did. She held on to that very first version of Troy, and her vision of who Troy could be if he tried hard enough. That vision had kept her going for 7 whole months.

She had thought about leaving a couple of times, but somehow, she would always find her way back to him. So finally, Sera had learned to accept her dreadful fate: Troy was her vice, and she was hooked. 

***

Sera liked to think of herself as a strong, independent and powerful black woman. But occasionally, like all other humans, she felt powerless. She hated the feeling with a burning passion and would almost always immediately find a way to get rid of it. On this particular occasion, she decided to rediscover and redefine her power by going back to her roots...writing using a pen and a paper. Sera had always been a self proclaimed writer. But she hadn't written in a really long time, three years to be exact. Before then, she had spent her entire life dreaming of becoming a writer, but an incident three years earlier had left her feeling emotionally numb and withdrawn, and so she had not written anything, or thought of pursuing a career in writing ever since then. Instead, she had decided she was now a reader, choosing rather to pursue a career as a Digital Publisher. 

Her plan was quite simple, really. She would save up the money she made as a Digital Publisher and then she would buy a cottage somewhere in the country. There, she would spend the rest of her days writing the only book she had ever promised to write. That was it: One book only, then she could let go, and finally, it would all be over. Until then, she didn't plan on writing anything ever again. 

But, on that particular evening Sera she knew she needed to do something that made her feel powerful again. Her options were quite limited. And so, she grabbed a pen and a paper out of her handbag and then she wrote and she wrote until she felt sick to her stomach.