Alas,
now it is my turn. Now it is my turn to tell my side. It is the truth as I know it. But it is a truth rendered with caveat: it is the truth as *he* told it to me. So did you really say those things about me? I cannot know. He will deny much of this, I suppose. You might deny it all. If it is true, I pity you. And if it is false, I pity him even more than I already do. And while self-pity is frowned upon by most, I’ll pity myself a little, too. I was a fool to put up with what I put up with.. I was a fool to let his tears drown out the voice in my head, that voice that urged me to run almost from the beginning.

He said I made him feel so safe. I could not resist him. I asked only one thing of him that morning, as I wiped away his tears. “I need someone to be nice to me.” That’s all I said. He had something he had to tell me. It was urgent. I dropped what I was doing and I went to his side. He looked afraid. “I slept with her,” he said. I surprised us both. I didn’t get mad. No, really, I didn’t. I just looked at him and asked, “Was it closure or rekindling?” Closure,” he said. God, he sounded so sincere.

I truly loved him more than I loved anyone-- at least I loved the representation of himself he put forth, the effort. He appeared to feel so remorseful after he had spent the night with you. He cried and he cried. He cried til he shook. “I love you so much,” he said. “Please don’t leave me. I promise I will never sleep with her again ” I continued protesting, kept saying I wanted to leave, he said he wanted me to hold him, but who would hold me? And then, naturally, I stayed. And I held him. And he shook. And I wiped away the tears. And I fucked him.

We believe the people we love when they lie to us. It gets better. After all that crying and him begging for me to stay and after he’d fucked you yet again, it happened again! But I’ll tell you this. He claimed to love me. He claimed he cared very deeply for me despite all that had happened between us. He claimed to want me more than anyone. Did he tell these things to you?

You may laugh at all this. If you are as cold as he’s made you out to be, surely you are chuckling now at my expense, perhaps have chuckled all along. I hate to believe that about you, about any human. It’s too much for me to take. I was raised in a very fucked up way, but I was raised with faith. Despite some really horrible experiences in my life, I continue to hold that most humans are okay, maybe good even, and that moral codes such as I have are not archaic and wrong. As of recent he’s led me to believe you both think you’re superior, that you’ve evolved beyond my silly desire for monogamy, for focusing on one relationship at a time. I suppose you are entitled.

But I must say...........

the real questions are the ones that obtrude upon your consciousness whether you like it or not, the ones that make your mind start vibrating like a jackhammer, the ones that you 'come to terms with' only to discover that they are still there. The real questions refuse to be placated. They barge into your life at the times when it seems most important for them to stay away. They are the questions asked most frequently and answered most inadequately, the ones that reveal their true natures slowly, reluctantly, most often against your will.

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