I knew

Looking back, I always knew. There was just no way it could not be true. I saw the way they looked at him. The skinny blonde particularly. She had her hands clasped expectantly under her chin, with a smile from ear to ear and light in her eyes; a light that could be seen even in the dark of the club. He wore her scarf on stage, the one he told me he “found”. Her thin little body swaying in time to the music, staring intently at his drunken antics on stage. I could never really see what he saw in her. I did not feel she was that attractive, but then what does that say about me if his taste in women is this? My heart began to ache then, I began to hate myself even more. After all, I was ready to give up everything and it still was not enough. So I thought maybe if I was thinner, maybe that would be enough. I mean the truth was I had been complimented for being thinner due to illness, maybe this was the key. I ached endlessly and my mind filled in blanks about what they were doing to each other. How many times, where, what exactly? I started cutting again, anything to gain control, to let the pain out, to get that rush when I finally saw red. I figured out that he had me leaving, and her coming the same day. They fucked where we had. I felt sick. I hated myself worse, but I could not leave. My whole heart was wrapped up in the idea that he might love me. Because my brain knew this pain, knew this rejection and on some level was used to it. It was rather like putting on an old shoe. His constant denial and long unexplained absences kept happening. He made no eye contact with me when she was around, that skinny blonde, but he paid plenty of attention to her. Everyday they talked on her lunch break and all day on messenger. I knew. He lied and I sobbed. I caught them once, after he had blown me off for the third day in a row. After another lengthy denial. I saw them, with his kids all around that restaurant table. She was dipping her tea bag, and he was inches from her ear whispering. Like he had with me only a week before. I had to make sure he knew that I knew. I walked up, he looked like a ghost, and she rolled her eyes as I approached. Friendly hello’s and meaningless words exchanged. Driving home that day I could barely see the road, I shook and could not breathe. But I knew this feeling, I had been here before. He turned off his phone. He never answered that day, and when he did he was full of lies and denial and vodka. I knew…

But then, there were more. I call this one “The Artist”. He introduced me to her and wanted us to be friends. She owned her own home, and this was great for him, because he could get away from his current situation. I asked about her over and over, and got denial after denial. Again. He became harder and harder to get ahold of. His phone was turned off more and texts went unanswered for days. I had this routine, that I stuck with during his time with her. I called as soon as I got to work. I would have butterflies waiting for his sleepy voice to answer. Or his intoxicated voice, it was hard to tell the difference. I longed for it, I counted the minutes until I could call him. If he answered, then I could go through the morning without cutting. If he didn’t after two calls then I could cut. I did so with relish. I would slide the exacto knife into my jeans pocket, the jeans that were now a size two, and walk down the busy hallway to the staff bathrooms. I would open the skin once, just to get started, and then slice according to how bad I felt. I would cover the still bleeding wounds with perfectly folded thick squares of toilet paper so they would not bleed through the front pocket of my jeans. The sound of the blade tearing into the skin was part of what brought me relief, I miss that sound. He spent almost all his time there, but still I stayed because I hated myself and had no self esteem. I think he knew this. She bought him alcohol, and fed his ego. He was not lonely with her, but I was. She paid his bills and they would fuck on the couch that he wanted me to give him head on. And so I did, and I hated myself and felt sick and dirty. But I still stayed. She confronted him about me, and I him and the lies became more difficult to keep straight. Until one night, it was confirmed with him being completely drunk coming home from another show he stumbled through. We were in the back of the car. He kept going on in his drunken slur, He kept complimenting her, just a few inches away from me. “How funky sexy cool you are, such a beautiful artist, a curvalicious women.” She responded of course, and he reached up and squeezed her shoulders while I was 6 inches away. I do not remember the rest of the ride back to my car, or how I got home. I was paying his fines, buying Christmas for his kids, working two jobs while he got drunk and fucked her. He turned off his phone that Christmas eve, which was just a few weeks later. I sat at home, alone trying to get through to him, feeling myself go numb. Everytime I would try and he would not answer I would go into the bathroom and close the door in the dark. I kept playing Joy Division as I would slice open my leg again and again. I watched it start to snow. I hated myself, and hated him but again was so desperate for him to see me. I wanted him to see all I had done for him, all I was going to give up. All the money, and the time and stress and the rejection. How easily replaced I was. The snow kept falling, and so did I.

As if these all had not dug chunks out of my being, there was another. I thought we could be friends. I thought we were getting to be friends. I was wrong. I had known who she was for a couple of years. She was also a dancer and kept showing up where we were. He stopped making eye contact with me when she was around. I knew this. I knew all of it. But the lies kept coming and he kept denying. The compliments he gave us were the exact same. “You should be a suicide girl”, “You are a beautiful dancer”, “I love your funky cool tattoos”. I confronted, he denied. Messenger became the way the got closer. He used the same methods, the same compliments, the same lies, and same manipulations. I knew. I think he knew that I knew, but just did not care. So they flirted and I sobbed and still would not eat, still I was cutting and getting so much sicker. Then they fucked. In a hotel room, the next morning he invited me over to that same room. I knew and he lied and I cried. Again.

Then came the breakdown, the psychotic break from too much cough syrup. I have written about it here previously. He told the truth then, all of it. And I knew but I still broke. Having him finally say it outloud was a relief and agony. The rest of course, you can read about. It is titled “The End of the Beginning.” If you have not read it, I ask you to.

This of course was years ago now. But it has not stopped hurting. I wonder if I was ever in his head, if he ever thought of me. He told me how he was sad and lonely. I was too, but I did not sleep with three other people. He told me he had low self esteem, I had none, and still have none. He used to tell me that “it was all for me.” But it wasn’t. Even when he says that now, I don’t believe it. I do not believe any of the compliments. I can not afford to. I am too sick and too sad to take any more betrayal. I want to stop thinking about this. I want to stop being haunted by hungry ghosts. I can’t. They won’t let me go.

There have been a hundred conversations about this, a thousand fights. My legs and arms bare deep and thick scars. But it still won’t leave me. He has told me so many times how sorry he is. He talks of addiction, and desperation and being lost. He talks of alcohol being the symptom and the cause but not the reason. He says he is sorry and that he is not the same.

I say I am sorry, and I am not the same. Because I knew, and I know and it still does not make it hurt any less. Because while he got better I got worse. I have nightmares about this still. I wake up sick and angry and shaking. He says it’s in the past and to let it go. But it won’t let go of me. I still hate my body and I hate what its become. I still have no self worth or self esteem. But it does not matter, I have no choices. I carry this alone, and it is often dark where I am.

I remind myself that he is different now, and so am I.