Sunday, June 6, 2010

My Own Shades of Grey

He wanted to marry me. He loved me. He was handsome. Sweet, caring, and heartbreakingly kind.

I was cruel.

I wanted to love him, wanted to care about him the way he cared for me, but it wasn't there. It just wasn't there.

I wanted someone else. Someone who made me smile, made my insides laugh...someone who made my heart jump when he touched my hand. Someone who'd made me feel what I'd never felt before.

While he was driving to visit me, driving 16 hours to spend a week with me...the someone I wanted broke up with his girlfriend. Panic riddled my body. Now was my chance. I had to risk everything for a chance to be with him.

So I did.

Knowing what I had to do but not quite knowing how to do it, I took the easy way out..I lied. I was going to hurt him, no matter what I did, no matter what I said. And I chose to take the easy way out. It couldn't hurt him as much as the truth, I thought. I was young. I didn't know what I was doing, just that it had to be done.

So...I hid in my own Shades of Grey; I told him that I had gotten back together with my longtime boyfriend, that it was all very complicated, and that we were going to get married. He got in his car, driving 16 hours back home, and I never heard from him again.

I started dating that other someone. I fell in love with him, and he with me. We will be married for 10 years this August.

*written for TheSausageFactory.