Woman Down

What’s strange is that it feels as if he did those things in a book and not in my real life. We forgive our characters for much worse than we’d forgive our friends and lovers, and I feel like I’m lending him the forgiveness I’d lend a character rather than an actual person in my life.

I hate myself right now. I hate that I feel like two different people, warring over a monster.

His gaze lingers on my mouth, his lips parting slightly, and for a brief second, I’m reminded of his taste. I want to spit the taste out. I want to delete it from my memory. I want every reminder of his touch and his mouth gone from my mind completely.

In the midst of my spiraling thoughts, it comes to me. A title for this book. Woman down. Because that’s what I am. How I feel.

I thought I was in a bad place before showing up here, but after the awful decisions I’ve made these last few weeks, I have sunken to a new low.

There’s a terrifying ambiguity in the way he’s behaving, like he’s playing a game with rules only he knows.

But no one can truly have it all without eventually losing it all.

And then, right there, on the open water, beneath the broad, indifferent gaze of the afternoon sun, we have open sex, or maybe it’s the beginnings of making love, unashamed, a defiant act of rebellion against everything we’ve just confessed and every boundary we’ve shattered.

He wanted to destroy my life, to claim it for himself.

“When your husband fucks you tonight, get on top and pretend you’re fucking me.”