into the woods. I’d been furiously tackling my task of packing when it popped up on one of my playlists, one of my mother’s old favorites. As I listened while ripping through my belongings, it occurred to me just how fantastically fucking fitting it was. A song so utterly symbolic of my relationship with the man who deceived me to my very core, who preyed on my weakened heart at just the right moment, claiming my weakness as his own. And for a brief time, gave me everything I felt I’ve been deprived of. Everything I’ve ever wanted. He played into every one of my romantic fantasies, declared us kindred spirits, worshiped my body, took great pains to handle my heart with the utmost care, pulled me into a living dream and kept me there until I was completely saturated with him, in him, while permeating himself into my fucking soul.
So, for the man who played me so well, I turned it up just to acknowledge his victory. I spelled it out with each lyric that I knew exactly on what level in which he deceived me.
The deepest.
I might not ever have fully trusted Tobias, but I believed enough in his lie to give him the rest of me.
But play he did. And he won with a checkmate to shame all others.
Whether it was deception or not, I may never know, but what I do know is that man now owns it wholly—in a way I can never get it back.
“I did what thieves do. I stole you!”
And oh, how he succeeded.
Leave, now, Cecelia. Now.
This time it surprises me how effortless it is to check out. I won’t fight it. In fact, I embrace it. I’m no longer capable of holding my own in these types of high stakes games. And with him, it seems I never had a chance.
Groggy, I shift in bed, wincing at my discomfort.
I don’t, at all, remember falling asleep, but I lay amidst my destroyed room filled with nothing but open bags and newly purchased suitcases I’d ordered last week in preparations to move home. I’m determined not to leave a single thing behind, because once I cross that threshold, and drive out of the gate, it will be for the last time.
I didn’t expect Tobias to come to me last night and I wasn’t disappointed. For all I know, I played DJ only aggravating the birds whose chirping now sounds distorted outside the doors. Still fighting, I wipe at my eyes, trying to clear the fog away.
When I’m finally able to keep them open, I lay confused on how I landed in a dead sleep in the center of my bed, my folded clothes intact. Continuing to fight to get my wits, I struggle to raise my limbs. It’s when I manage to lift from where I was comatose that I feel faint and resume my position back on the mattress to catch my bearings.
What in the hell?
Seconds later, an annoying sting beneath me has me lifting to check for sharp objects. Coming up empty, I reach for my cell phone on my nightstand for the time to see I’ve slept the day away and have only an hour until my shift.
That is if I was going back to work.
Which I’m not.
Instead, I shoot an email to my supervisor that takes me minutes, not seconds, to compose due to my blurred vision.
I won’t be coming in. Not tonight, and not ever. I won’t even give my father a heads-up about leaving early because I owe him no explanation. I’m only a few weeks shy of fulfilling my obligation of our agreement and what loyalty I had for him no longer exists. To hell with him.
To hell with them all.
As of this moment, I’m granting myself early parole. Normalcy sounds just peachy at this point, bland blissful. Determined to get home by nightfall, I try to lift again and groan out in frustration.
“What in the actual fuck?”
I repeatedly blink as I grapple with the gravity holding me down. I’ve never in my life been so tired.
Struggling to stand, I stumble back and steady myself with my hands on my mattress feeling hungover, even though I didn’t have a drop to drink last night. Which is ironic because there’s no better time to indulge than when your ex-boyfriends appear like bloodthirsty fairies after months of heart-shattering absence busting you just as you’re declaring your love for their brother.