Therapy
She sat down in her window seat and tuned out as the other passengers got on. All that kept running through her head were the lyrics to John Denver’s tune: “I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again”. It wasn't going to be soon, she reminded herself, hopefully this time it was finally over.
When she arrived back home, she didn’t feel anything. There was no pain, regret, fear, or even optimism. There was an overall haze of numbness, which she fiercely embraced. She was a journalist by profession but didn’t feel ready to start writing stories like she had before. Her work had been suffering for so long; it was amazing that she still was able to find a job. She accepted something she could comfortably deal with: obituaries. It suited her because there was always work to be done and there was little need for interaction with others. The appreciation for life didn’t set in like it probably should’ve; she was too frozen to notice what surrounded her.
Whenever afforded the chance, she'd force herself to go out and participate in the social world. Most ties with her 'old' life had long been broken but there were a couple of people that had hung on. Her intentions to go out were to make sure she didn't completely isolate herself in her own misery. Finding a suitor was the very last thing on her mind. Without much effort, her defenses had already kicked into full gear which made her unappetizing to men.
Conversation, the simple need to communicate with another person, was what mattered right now, and there were only a couple of people that understood her. Sarcasm tended to make it hard to connect with others, and her black demeanor made it almost impossible for others to deal with her. But months after her separation, she started to feel an intense need to get rid of his taste; to rid her body of his presence. It started with one guy.
There were no intentions of dating or a possibility of anything else. The sweetness and hopefulness of romance had long ago faded. There was one reason why this guy was on top of her and it had nothing to do with like, love, or even lust. The only reality was that she was no longer his. After the first guy, a couple more followed. Again, a relationship was never an option but she needed to show that no one owned her. Her mission had been accomplished. She was tainted and it wasn't only to him. She was ruined for every single guy she crossed paths with. No one wanted to have a whore as a serious anything, much less as a wife. She was making damn sure that no sane guy would ever be interested.
She didn’t really enjoy these sessions. Most guys weren’t even good enough to be friends with. They served one purpose and that was all she cared about. They didn’t matter to her. The heart she once had, had been turned to stone. The guys she would share her bed with weren't strangers. She was impulsive at times, but never stupid. Most of them were ‘repeaters’ as well; it took too much time recruiting bed mates who understood the rules. Eventually they no longer had identities; they all faded into one being. They were used as a mere representation of her twisted revenge. Revenge she meant to inflict on him.
While on her knees, sucking these guys off, her thoughts wandered off elsewhere. While on her back, she said what was appropriate without really giving it much effort. She'd make sure to say the right name and promise him that he was fantastic at what he was doing. In truth, she didn’t really feel anything. She would robotically obey their instructions. They’d cum and she’d leave, sometimes physically satisfied, most of the time not. When she’d shower afterwards, she never felt clean but it had nothing to do with them, it was all her. The marked breasts, the rug-burned knees, the sore legs, the bruised lips…without her knowledge, they had started to wear away at her shell.
It went on like that for a good two years. The deadness was a strong barrier that didn’t let much seep in. She didn’t realize that she had slowly started to come apart at the seams. The lyrics that were on constant loop in her head "I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad, the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had". I guess Tears for Fears were on to something, she thought.
Then there was a night when she noticed that she couldn’t sleep. It was annoying because she had never had a problem sleeping. It seemed that she only had to close her eyes to rest. That night, though, it didn't come easy but it wasn't much to cause concern. Then that one night turned into a couple. Days were starting to lose their meaning. The question ‘why am I feeling like this’ started popping up more and more. Answers weren’t within her grasp. Then the feeling of not being able to breathe started to settle in. It seemed that every time she tried to inhale deeply, her chest constricted even more. Nightmares also started to plague the couple of hours when sleep did visit. It got to be too much for her to tolerate.
The doctor provided medicinal answers but she was reluctant to accept such help. There had to be some other way to better deal with this. She sought out her thinking spot.
Sitting at the cliff’s edge overlooking the neighboring ocean, there was no one by her side. With the moon being her only companion, she started analyzing her life. She had been so good at understanding what her life meant, and where it was headed. Now she was completely and utterly lost.
Once upon a time she had been sweet. There had existed optimism. She had believed in love and that beauty did exist in the world. Perhaps that had been her greatest downfall but she had been happy. Her childhood had been normal and fulfilled. It was the mistakes in her young adult life that had transformed her to this.
The relationship she had had with him had been a hallucination from the very beginning. There was manipulation from the get go and she had been painfully naïve. Everyone on the outside had constantly told her that she was on the path to destruction. They advised her to leave before it got worse. No one understood that she had already handed over everything since the beginning. She never stood the chance to escape. Apart from the physical abuse that had encompassed the whole five years of this sentence, the emotional and mental abuses were the things that lingered. They were the ones attacking her now. He had told her so many degrading things. Words that had torn her apart and splintered her soul in so many ways, she hadn’t even yet begun to piece it all together. When she had been attached to him, she was meek and submissive. Her voice was not often heard and when it was, it was never loud enough to drown out his. She had, at some point, given up and accepted her life the way it was. She had started to agree to his words telling her that she was worthless. No one would love her for what or who she was. So many, many words he spat at her, time and time again, to make sure she stayed there. Until that one day arrived. She got tired of giving in and left.
The moon’s reflection glistened on the lake. Everything was so calm, yet she felt so much rage inside. She wanted to scream, cry, tear out his heart and watch it beat in her hands, and she wanted to shrivel up and die. In a way, she pondered, she had already died inside. The innocence and sincerity had long been murdered and the present bitterness was what had grown from those ashes.
What most people couldn't understand was that this person that sat there was not her. The real 'her' had long along been stolen. She was the type of woman that handed over everything. She was the type of woman that would help out anyone if possible. It could've been seen as a flaw but it was a characteristic that she was most proud of. It took too much work to be bitter, guarded, and fake. Everything that existed now was a sham. Her sarcasm, her cynicism, her nonchalance, and her absolute disregard for the male race, all took so much of her time and strength. It was hard constantly pretending that she didn't care, didn't hurt, that she didn't know that what she was doing was wrong. Even crying had become foreign to her. Maybe, she thought, I shed all the tears I could possibly spill.
She sighed because it was all she could physically manage. There really was no going back and it was no longer okay for her to continue to be fixated by the past. Yes, she was damaged goods, no longer grade A material, but she was still existing. She was still here and some credit should’ve been honored for that.
As she got up and stood at the cliff’s edge, she smiled as the wind teased her hair. This was what it felt like to be free. She extended her open arms up to the sky and breathed in deeply; a long sweet breath that eased all her sorrows and woes. When she exhaled, she took a step forward and walked off into the nothingness. Finally she found the freedom she was looking for in the fall to the bottom.
Hitting the water was a hard shock and it wasn’t so much painful as it was exhilarating. As she floated on her back, she glanced up at the moon. ‘It's not over’, she promised it, ‘I’m not done yet’.
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