Forgive me?

What have I done? What horrible devil compelled me to do as I've done, to sin as I have. There's no going back, there's no forgiveness for the breach I've torn into my own life, my one and only. I've taken the most precious of feelings and doused it in horror and regret, painted over the beautiful words of a priceless poem with vile insults as the author watched and cried. Such is the horror. Such is the pain.

I stare, face rid of all blood, at the reason of my self-torment, at the words that have brought me my doom. The cursor blinks back at me from my laptop, no statement needed. My book has already sold out, and I have bought my end with that money.

The story was simple enough. A girl meets a boy. They fall in love. And then he recklessly and carelessly breaks her heart and her spirit, willingly and without remorse. The girl is left in pieces, weeping and cursing, stuck in her worst reality. And she doesn't get back up.

It is simple enough. It's simple and true. Every single word, every phrase, there's not a single thing out of place. It happened as it says, there are no mistakes. I made sure of that. With every click and every clack of the keys as I typed, I made sure the story reflected real life. You won't find here any sort of lies.

It's true, there was a girl. That girl did indeed meet a boy, and they talked, and talked, and talked, and she thought they were in love. So she handed him her heart, trusting, believing he'd keep it safe, protect it from the same harm he would not much later inflict on her. And he did, with a sort of sick joy, he hurt her, maybe not physically, but isn't the heart a physical part of the body? He broke it. To this date, I'm still not sure if guilt was ever in the picture after what he did. He consciously tore her apart and left her lying there, taking her heart as a souvenir of the vacation he had taken for a time.

Is it bad I used this story? Is it wrong I made nothing up? There's no imagination that can form the words that were spoken in that short time, the time they shared as if they both actually cared. Because her love was flawed as well. Did she love him, or the ideal he created for her? The perfect boy, the perfect man, always there to hold her when she cried. At times I think he might've had an addiction, a need to see those tears, and when they stopped, because he made her happy enough, when they stopped he couldn't do it. He had to make them come back. And he stayed, just to see them one last time.

I keep staring at my screen, in shock. I slowly start to realize what I've done, the magnitude of what I've written. When I was working on it, letting the words flow, my brain stopped functioning as it should. I counted nothing in terms of repercussions, no account was taken for other people's feelings. But no one has to know, right? No one must find out the truth behind the words. Let them believe what they will, that it's something that has been made and not something that has been lived. I can't afford to let them know. But they will know. The ones who matter.

I wrote of love at first sight and betrayal, of heartbreak and tears, of nothing but pain and realization that the world is not kind, least of all to those who expect to be happy. The girl had hoped for love, and she had gotten pain. The boy had hoped for pain and he had gotten joy. But no one had gotten happiness. And writing it didn't even make me happy. I doubt whoever reads it will find it between its pages either, for there's none of that to be found where I'm concerned.

The tears running down my cheeks are not of joy. I have just published my first book. My dreams are coming true before my eyes. And still, they reflect only my sadness and deepest pain, not even bothering to read the summary written hurriedly under the book title on the website.

The phone on my bedside table starts to ring. I know who it is. I knew already who it would be when I started writing, and when I finished, and even when I finally managed to get it out onto the world. But somehow it's only now that I'm starting to realize what I've actually done. The tears keep falling. I can't stop them. I don't want to stop them.

It isn't fair, because this isn't even my pain I'm crying for. It's not my tears rolling down my cheeks. I know who's calling. I don't answer. I can't answer. I don't know what I'd say, how I'd explain. As I said, there's no forgiveness, and therefore no apology can be given. Because it wasn't my story I wrote, it isn't my pain that's out in the open, it isn't my shame making tears roll down my cheeks. It's hers. Her story, her tears, her forgiveness which I can't seek. She trusted me and I betrayed her. Worse than he could have ever done. Worse than being left alone after thinking you've found The One, the love of your life. It's worse, much, much worse.

Because at the end of the story, the girl goes crying to her sister. She cries on her shoulder and tells her her story, lays what's left of her heart out to see if together they might mend it, fix it, make it better and stronger.

I grabbed those pieces and molded my fame out of it. My dreams have come true. I have published a book. I can't be happy. I doubt I'll find it in myself to care, after what I've done.

Now that you know, you might understand, finally, why I say and insist. There's no going back. There is no forgiveness.