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I could try to rationalize this act in a thousand ways but can only draw one conclusion.
I’m mourning a future I can no longer allow myself to have.
As long as I keep our shared secrets, as long as my questions go unanswered, as long as the heart I have keeps beating, the more I’ll lose myself inside my web of lies. Full of despair, I stare into space, my heart refusing to give me an inch of release. I don’t know how long I sit in the wake of my own destruction, but I get lost in between my dream and reality, intent on feeling every part of the aftermath.
It’s the sound of the front door and the familiar call of my name that has me scrambling to get my ruined dress back in the plastic garment bag before tossing it into my closet. For years I’ve been rationalizing these dreams. For years I’ve denied my emotions, compartmentalized them, tucked them away while telling myself that perspective and release will eventually come. For years I’ve promised myself that rationalization and reasoning will one day allow me to make peace with my past and lead to some semblance of salvation.
But it’s simply not the truth, and time has proven as much.
And so, when my fiancé pushes open our bedroom door to see the wreckage of those empty and unfulfilled promises, I do the only thing I’m capable of, I stop lying to us both.
Time doesn’t fly—at least it hasn’t for me. It ebbs and flows between the parts I want to remember and the minutes I would give anything to forget. The flow is tricky, especially between the past and present. I’ve got to tread carefully around it because I can get swept-up between the parts I romanticized and the brutal reality of what transpired. When I left Triple Falls, that was very much the case for me.
It took some time for me to see just how wronged I’d been in my time here, and just how manipulated I was. A few years after I left, I got angry to the point I forced myself to face the excruciating truth.
No matter how much they proclaimed to care for me, I was used by the men in my life in an inexcusable way.
I should never have let them have so much power over me.
I should have been stronger.
I should have fought a lot harder for myself and for what I deserved.
I shouldn’t have let them keep so many secrets from me.
To this day, the woman in me still ridicules the girl I get glimpses of in my reflection.
I resent that I still dream of them so often, dragging myself through our memories, which only aids in maintaining my self-made prison. I hate that in the waking hours, I’m a woman intelligent enough to rule my life in all areas with an iron fist, but when I dream of them, I’m too weak to bring myself to begrudge them for their collective crimes against me, the way I should.
Anger should win, but it doesn’t. It never has.
Most people mourn intending to move forward, but some part of me knows I grieve in my sleep to keep my memories close, and they come to me vividly, aiding in deconstructing the world and walls I try to resurrect day by day. But it’s a different world and has been since I left. Over the years, I fought hard to earn my self-respect back, while nightly forced to give in to the whims of my heart.
A battle I fought since I left.
A war I lost last night.
So, today I’ll let myself go and ride the drift, let the flow consume me. I’ll live in the past, unpacking my memories trying carefully to not give absolution to those who don’t deserve it.
But it’s the loss that stifles my progress. It’s always the loss.
Because no matter how much I resent them at times, I was lucky in a way few get lucky.
I was loved in a way few get loved.
So, naturally, it forever changed me.
Parking at the edge of town, I exit the car in the freezing wind, the clouds covering the day in grey, the gravel crunching beneath my booted feet as I make my way toward the entrance at the foot of a small hill.
Though my time here is limited, I’ve purposely sabotaged my future to the point I’ll have zero direction once I leave. It was on the drive back to Triple Falls that I realized my course was always going to be reverse. Even with all the milestones I’ve accomplished, with all the living I’ve been forced to do, sadly, and deep down, I feel the best part of my life is already over. When I lived here years ago, I constantly dreamed of a future. My purpose here, now, is to suspend time and concentrate on then.
All I have of them now are the remnants of our time together. Over time I’ve realized all that happened in those months I spent with them was enough to seize and lock my heart away. And it’s the battle between my temples that gnaws at me, my unyielding loyalty that refuses to let me forget while the rest of me begs to be set free.
But it’s truth I seek, and I’m steps away from it now feeling the full weight of our collective mistakes as I enter the small cemetery, the creak of the waist-high iron gate making my presence known. A few steps into the secluded yard, I find him and kneel, pulling off my glove to trace the bold letters on the top of the heavy stone.
Prince Déchu Fallen Prince
It’s been over two thousand days since his departure, since he was stolen from us, from me, leaving an irreparable and permanent hole in my heart. I can still recall the curl of his dark lashes when I closed his eyes. I can still remember the weight of him in my lap as I cradled him to me, the feel of his lips when I kissed him goodbye. No matter his crimes against me, all I feel for him is love, longing, and gratitude.
