I opened the door to my apartment, and saw the small blinking light by the phone. Twenty missed calls, twenty messages. I looked at the clock, realizing I’d only been gone a few hours.<\/p>\n
Not gone long enough, <\/em>I thought.<\/p>\n I knew it was her that had called, her voice on the other end of the messages. I wanted to rip the phone out of the wall, throw it to the ground, and pummel the machine to tiny bits with a baseball bat. Instead, I hit play…<\/p>\n The first message started as they usually did, wondering how I was, and if I wanted to see her. She sounded normal enough. But I knew that would change in the messages to come.<\/p>\n Around message four the blame started. I caused her unhappiness, it was my fault for how she felt. I ruined her life.<\/p>\n Message number ten was when words started to slur. I could sense hatred in her voice. Hatred of self, resentment of us. I should have stopped there, but a part of me needed to feel her misery. It made it easier to hate her.<\/p>\n Around message fifteen was when\u00a0the anger reared its ugly, inevitable voice. Threatening me with violence, then begging me to just “be a man” and come see her. She knew I was avoiding her, and her manipulation over me was unbearable.<\/p>\n The last few messages were quieter in tone. I thought that maybe she was passing out, or just giving up trying to reconcile with me. But then the realization of what she was doing came to light.<\/p>\n “I took them all. I’ll miss you forever. I’m sorry for everything, but you won’t have to deal with me anymore….tell them\u00a0all I love….” <\/em>and then all I heard was shallow breathing, mixing with soft, muffled crying. Then silence. I tried to call back, but only got the busy signal.<\/p>\n You selfish rotten bitch, <\/em>I thought.<\/p>\n She talked about killing herself all the time, but I always ignored her. In my mind, it was just another way to control me, manipulate me like putty to do whatever she wanted. I never had any say in anything. But, I thought, I have a choice now, don’t I?<\/p>\n As\u00a0the last message finished, I sat in my dark apartment, looking at the phone. Calling 911 never crossed my mind. I didn’t want her to be saved. What I did want was to see her at her lowest, in a situation where I would be in control, not her.<\/p>\n Thirty minutes later, I arrived at her place. The door was open slightly, a faint light coming though the crack. Jewell, her favourite musician at that time, was playing softly.<\/p>\n Just walk away, it’s not your concern.<\/em><\/p>\n But a part of me, a dark, confused, angry part of me wanted to see what was behind that door. I pushed the door open slowly and called out her name. A groan emerged from the back room.<\/p>\n She’s still alive.<\/em><\/p>\n As I went through the kitchen, I saw papers strewn about. I picked them up reading what was written. They were written to her true love, apologizing for past regrets. Then I saw the kitchen table. It has been cut and sliced with a knife, and carved into the center were the words ” every other touch feels pale and shallow”<\/p>\n She wants to kills herself over another man, yet calls and blames me? God I hope she really did it. I’ll be free….<\/em><\/p>\n A small, crumpled mass lay in the corner of the back bedroom. I bent down to her chest, and laid my hand on her breast.\u00a0Her breathing was shallow, but she was alive.<\/p>\n As\u00a0 I touched her, she mumbled thank you, thank you for coming, I knew you would…<\/em>and then ended that sentence with another man’s name. I wanted to kick her, smother her, give her what she wanted.<\/p>\n But I didn’t. I held her hand, spoke kind words to her and told her everything would be alright. I should have called an ambulance, but didn’t. I stayed with her all night. I kept her alive, and yet felt myself dying every minute I was there.<\/p>\n She survived. I should have broken it off then, but co-dependency is a bitch. I went through similar scenario’s twice more, until finally I had enough of her self destructive behavior, wised up, and left.<\/p>\n I hope someone helped her, but it wasn’t to be me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I opened the door to my apartment, and saw the small blinking light by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"googlesitekit_rrm_CAowqprcCw:productID":"","_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7315],"tags":[589476293,2561960,589476282],"class_list":["post-4228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-day-in-the-life","tag-589476293","tag-7-things-about-me","tag-a-day-in-the-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p99I7P-16c","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mywalkabout.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mywalkabout.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mywalkabout.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mywalkabout.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mywalkabout.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mywalkabout.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7279,"href":"https:\/\/mywalkabout.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4228\/revisions\/7279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mywalkabout.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mywalkabout.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mywalkabout.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}