Betrayal's Betrayal

I started in denial, bypassed anger, bargaining, and depression, and went straight to acceptance, like a pilot smooth-sailing to point B. Or a robot incapable of processing emotions. Or just a very efficient human. Point being I should be burying body-wracking sobs into a pillow with the word fool scrawled across my face.

I cried, but not the teetering towards insanity kind typical of a shattered heart. A couple times tears sprang, but didn’t fall. A piano melody brought sniffles. Mostly though, my insides seize, and I think ‘oh, here come the waterworks. Finally,’ but the arrest softens before I crumple as if God has put a plug on my emotions and is letting them out a trickle at a time. Perhaps the emotions are lurking and waiting for the right moment to pop out and sabotage my life. Perhaps I took back my power.

In the quiet moments, it bears down on me like a menacingly grey cloud. Reminders of it intersperse a busy day like drops of rain catching me off guard. I wipe it off and continue on with my day.

Fool. A thousand times a fool. Hit from behind. Stabbed in the back. Low blows. But who was it that didn’t see what they would be losing?

I have to let go of the one I thought I could count on forever. My ride or die. My person. Like I’m moving to another planet, and they didn’t pass the test, so they can’t come with me.

What did I do to bear the brunt of such hatred?

I should talk to someone, but that would bring pain to another, and I don’t want to be the cause. I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m innocent. It is not my burden to bear, but their’s. Let them give their reasons. I don’t owe them anything.

What does betrayal taste like? Bittersweet. Metallic. Mustard for the first time.

What does betrayal feel like? Novacane. A pall. A stomach-flopping plummet. The clutches of a python.

What does betrayal smell like? A rag doused in chloroform. Whatever the black flies are swarming.

What does betrayal sound like? A murder of crows under a gloomy sky. The tinny ringing after an explosion.

The wound is fresh, but there is no physical pain. Perhaps because letting go means my life will change for the better. I was submerged in darkness, held down as I tried to blindly claw my way out, and now I can finally reach the light. Where there was once a deluge of tears is now a dusty, cracked riverbed. The person I mourn existed a lifetime ago when I lived as a mouse hiding under and behind everything.

No one talks about female narcissism. How wily it is; shape-shifting and chameleon-like. The beautiful, sickly sweet exterior. The uncanny ability to read a person and know how to hook them. The desperation to be liked hidden in the over-perked voice and too wide smile. The need for attention gravely mistaken as a pick-me. The green that flashes for a brief second on their face, and wakes the Devil. The mastery in manipulation: a gentle touch; a flattering compliment; well-timed tears. The helpful deeds later used as leverage. The drawing out of secrets, masked as friendship, to store away for blackmail. Unhappiness numbed by an attachment to vices. Emotions balanced atop a perilous tip.

No need to Google narcissistic traits. I grew up with one, but I had no idea. Maybe I was in the denial stage my whole life.

What I didn’t know about betrayal is that it also betrays; I’m not sad because of what they did, but because it means goodbye.