Member-only story
I Can’t Sleep at Night
A lesson in unforgiving.
I can’t sleep at night because of what you did.
I try to rationalize it, what happened to me in those dim hours where no one knew a thing either way. You hid behind your mask, a smile in your voice, but I knew who you were. But you had read my file. You knew I would be called out as crazy if I ever mentioned the existence of you. Back then, I knew the truth of it. It’s a bitter taste.
Even now, I write it down and hate you all the more for the web you weaved me into.
We say, “Never meet your heroes,” and I wish I had never met you. You weren’t real in anything you said or did. And I learned to despise you over time in your asylum made of careful whims.
The why of it eludes me at the best of moments.
But traumatizing — you didn’t care, did you?
But you knew you had won. You would always win. You had the power every single time.
I have learned how to hate you. I have cut you from my life in snippets. I have championed your former flames because you rose from the ashes every time as if you had every right to be there — but now I don’t think you do.
I learned how to suffer in silence under your care, and I’ll always know — always know — just what you did and what you spoke in fits of laughter.
No one would believe me, but it doesn’t matter at this point.
I suffered, alone, with not a friend in the world — and you took advantage of the moment.
To what end, I don’t know.
I just know I hate you and I can’t sleep at night when I think of you.
