Magma

Our love is raw. We trust each other down to the core, something nobody in my life has ever come close to. When I feel as if I've flayed myself with a potato peeler, I remind myself: Love is a spectrum. It is as nainful as it is wonderful.

He's peeled me like an onion. Surrounded by the I leavings of my own sallow skin, I've dwindled to nothing, and my eyes smart.

On a dark screen I see a little light blinking rapidly. Second heart: my way out. Little heart, thrive, grow, and beat in time with mine. You are my light out of this darkness.

But I know that my choice is between having him and having the baby, between staying together and severing myself from our root system. To me, it’s one or the other. A termination, no matter what I do.

“Has the crying increased?” the psychiatrist asked. “Ya, I think so,” I answered, drying my eyes with my sleeve. “And how is it going with him?” he asked, leaning back in his chair. I straightened up, swallowed the lump in my throat, and mustered as much dignity as I could. “It’s going well, thanks.” The psychiatrist hmmed and I see’d, and said finally, “Well, it’s not good that your mood swings haven’t evened out, my dear. We can add another medication to try to stabilize you.” He turned to his computer and entered a new prescription as he continued to mumble toward his keyboard about the mechanism of action and the purpose of the medication.

I’ve always tried to be a good person, and I’m pretty sure I used to be. But these days I have nothing to give, nothing to say. I’m here, but I’m completely lost. My parents taught me that patience, empathy, and hard work were key to a happy life. If I treated people with kindness, everything would turn out fine. But now I find that I’ve become emotionally bankrupt, having given away much more than I ever had to begin with.

I have been working very hard to forgive him. I will, with time. He’s so beautiful, it’d be difficult not to offer him forgiveness. I find it much more difficult to forgive myself for being such a psychotic idiot. For not having known better, for not having left, for letting it carry on so long.

“Breaches of trust are remarkably common in relationships. There are a number of ways to work through issues like this. You have a choice: Do you want to try to forgive him and stay together? If you don’t believe you can do that, the only option is to end the relationship.” “But I want to stay together,” I answered, relieved. At the end of the appointment he wrote a prescription that he wanted me to begin taking immediately.

Everything was in a fog, but I cut again and again, watching as blood sprang from the wound. I smeared the blood into my hair, screamed, cried; I would be a redhead too when he came home.

I am such an idiot. How can one person be this much of a failure? I thought I could just wait it out until I was good enough. That he’d come to love me eventually. But he just looks through me. I am transparent. I don’t exist.

When I feel as if I’ve flayed myself with a potato peeler, remind myself: Love is a spectrum. It is as painful as it is wonderful.

He often tells me that he thinks his mother is clever and beautiful, but on the few occasions he’s talked about his father, he’s marveled at how his mother could’ve been with such a jackass.

Another time, his father took him to some woman’s flat and made him wait while he fucked her upstairs. But he got to watch cartoons in the living room. That was a good day to him—until they came home to find his father’s girlfriend raving, demanding to know where they’d been.

Sometimes, we boil over. I explode about something or crumble into a pile of self-pity. We bare our teeth, I threaten to leave forever, I sob, he comforts me, we fuck and fall asleep. The next day, we’re silent until the world has realigned. Then life goes on, as life always goes on.

I thought he’d be mad about the water incident, but he seemed to feel some sly joy because I’d started a fight over him. He’d already told me how unfortunate he thought it was that I wasn’t more competitive.

He thinks the scratches are disgusting; they’re all over me, and when he sees them, he just shakes his head. “Why are the beautiful ones always crazy?” I don’t have an answer. I’m just damaged goods, but it made me happy that he called me beautiful.

I told her that Steinn had slipped me something and raped me and I’d gone to the hospital the day after. When Anne heard that, she laughed sloppily and said, “That makes no sense. He couldn’t have raped you. You were hitting on him so hard.”

The nurse encouraged me to report the rape, but I didn’t want to, I knew it was my own fault. I shouldn’t have taken drugs. All I had to do was say “No, thanks,” and it never would have happened, I wouldn’t have lost my senses.

That night I cried myself to sleep—not because I pitied myself because of the rape, but because I knew he’d never watch over me half as well as he watches over her.

“What does she want now?” I asked, a deliberate frown crossing my face. He was flustered, evasive: “She said she’d heard a rumor about you . . . that you were raped and you blogged about it.”

He’d been with some redhead. She lives with her boyfriend, so they fucked on the old, crusty couch in the study hall at the university. I know that I have to end things, but I can’t tear myself away from him. If I were better, then I’d be enough.

The other day, he took it to the next level—he wants me to quit smoking, and for every cigarette I smoke from now on, he’s going to fuck eight women. I don’t want him to sleep with more girls. He should only be with me. I’ll never smoke again.

I started to cry, but in a way it was my own fault. If I’d have gone with them, this never would’ve happened. He was just trying to help his friend.