The Mistake

What is a mistake for you? Is it a thing you did unintentionally? Or is it something you do, that is actually completely normal for yourself?

August 15 - Eleven months, sixteen days

Ann is seen by her boyfriend laughing with a guy called Mark. He is a new guy from her workplace. On that day she forgot that Connor's truck broke down and that he will be waiting for her at the place where she works. She says, "He has seen me laugh and push Mark, the new guy. [...] I know what he is thinking, I know where his mind is going. [...] He's steaming. I know the fear he has of losing me overpowers everything else, even his common sense."

She knows that he wont believe her no matter what she says. He will just replay a story over in his mind that is far from the truth. 

And I wonder, how can anyone do something like this? Why can't the other person be happy without you? Laughing, Smiling, these are all natural you do it life. Who are you to get mad, when you know this person is having fun without you?

Ann wonders why she doesn't have friends. Why no one talks to her. She knows its her own doing. It's her fears that something will happen and she'll say the wrong things to the wrong people, and they will interfere somehow.

Ann acts like how anyone would, in a domestic violent relationship.  I myself was afraid to be seen with people. With anybody. I rather sit in a corner doing nothing and talking to nobody, rather than to be seen with people and later getting it from my boyfriend. At the beginning, I was a girl with many friends. I laugh alot, I smiled alot and I sang alot. These were taken away from me by my boyfriend. Everything I loved. When I did smile or laughed, I got screamed and scolded at  by him. I always wondered who told him that. Who was so cruel to tell my boyfriend whether I was happy or not. After alot scoldings, I started to isolate myself. From my friends, classmate and family. I wasn't given the permission to smile nor laugh. Everyone I once knew became Strangers.

I was afraid like Ann. I was afraid that if I do talk to someone, will they tell him what I said? Will they tell him how I reacted? You may think I am overreacting, but if you there, and you heard at least half the things my Ex boyfriend knew, you would have been amazed. 

Once I was scolded because I went to the bathroom in school, and I didn't tell him, which was considered for him, as a waste of opportunity to see each other.

After Ann finishes her work, she walks with Connor towards her car. She's afraid. She says, "I know what this silence means, all I can do is wait for it to explode." She feels claustrophobic and she is considering running. She's in denial. "Maybe this time he'll talk to me. He's getting a little better [...] maybe this time he will understand." 

That's when he grabs her wrist and squeezes hard. "It's always too much, too intense, too everything."

I know this feeling too well. After being seen by somebody, he comes up to me. At the beginning, he never touch me in public. He always waited until we were alone in a confined room. The waiting was the worst. To know what was going to happen when we were alone. At the beginning I tried talking to him. Telling him that what I did was not wrong and explaining to him what I was thinking at that time. I either got a reply to "shut up" or just nothing. Once we were alone, I was belittled so badly. I was called names. I was then pushed around until I fell. I would have gotten up on my feet and he would either crush my wrist or my arms. It usually left a mark, but it was mostly cold season at that time so I could mostly hide them. That was the beginning. 

After a few months, he would let out his anger in public. Screaming and shoving me around. In school I would start crying knowing he was angry. Hiding myself in the bathroom, only going out when I hear the bell ring. When I was crying, he would stop me by punching my in my stomach, making me not able to breath nor cry. 

After a while, I became immune to all of it. I hardly smiled, laughed or cry. I was just a robot.

Connor shoved Ann to the floor. He was spitting bad words to her, being cruel. She considers herself as lucky, as he let out his anger to the wall and not to her. But she is trembling with fear. After the fight, Connor understands that what he did was wrong. He apologizes, begs for forgiveness and pretended it never happened. She wishes that he would return to be like how they first met. But she knows that he wont. And this scar is from a love that has gone wrong. Sadly no one but herself can see it.

My story has a different ending. He never felt remorse. Not a single bit. We never spoke of it. But I know he never felt any sign of remorse at all. None.

Ann asks a very important question, A question that I asked myself everyday. "Why does he get to be two different people, and I only get to be myself, the one who is here to take what he has to give, and who is here to pick up the pieces afterwards."