Finally it was over. Last night had been
the end of all the nights, the culmination of what felt like a lifetime of
peering through a dense fog. And don’t think it had been easy. She’d have done
it years ago if she could only have figured out how. He’d seemed invincible,
impervious to tears or rage, effortlessly manipulating her words, curving and
twisting them into a smokestream, demonstrating black was white, leaving her
stranded, gasping for air, fins flapping uselessly.
Friends had told her, some more kindly
than others, that he was gaslighting her, that she’d be much happier without
him, that she deserved so much more. It was impossible to argue with them - she
could see that from the outside it must look like that - but what they didn’t
see, couldn’t see, was the man she’d created from her romantic dreams, from her
happy memories of those early days. Created and then immortalised in myth, in a
million stories she’d told herself, stories that wrapped their words around
her, pinning her arms, preventing movement.
Then it had happened. It was impossible,
what he had just said; it was inconceivable that he could have said such a
thing, yet he had said it, she had heard it. One moment of blinding clarity was
all she needed. No, she cried, feeling the beloved myth dissolve, the bonds
falling away, her arms rising from her sides, the pain and joy of life
returning - finally, it was over.
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