The Solar Eclipse of the Heart

  Snuggled under a sea of blankets, I stare at the moon peeking out from atop his mop of hair. He snores ever so softly, his face had never looked so peaceful. I love him so impossibly much. Never in a million years would I have dreamed that I would have someone like him, it seems too good to be true. Like at any moment I’m going to wake up from all this and I’ll be back where I always knew I would be, alone, miserable and terrified.

   The glint of my ring somehow sparkles in the darkness, almost like it knows I need a reminder that this is real. It’s the most beautiful piece of jewelry I’d ever seen, a color shifting gem atop a waterfall of diamonds cascading underneath, like a little hammock for the pretty purple stone. 

    If they’d have seen my ring, they would’ve hated it. I know they would. If they had their say in the matter, I would’ve never even been able to interact with him at all. From the very beginning, they had seen him as the villain in their story, some grand foe to conquer. I never understood why. There was no reason for it, he had never been anything but perfectly lovely towards me and them and yet, it was never enough. 

   That took me a long time to understand, that nothing would ever be enough for them. No sacrifice I made, no torture I endured, no misery I suffered would ever be enough. They always needed more, never satisfied. 

   When I was younger, I wanted to believe the best in them. I wanted to believe that I just didn’t understand yet, that I was too young to see how this all was really for my benefit. Even when I lay awake in tears night after sleepless night, I fought to believe that this wasn’t just cruelty for the sake of it. That no human could ever somehow get any sort of joy from this. This had to all be something out of reach and one day when I get older, everything will all make sense.

   Well now I’m older and unfortunately, it does all make sense, in a nonsensical kind of way. I was just a toy, a pawn, a plaything. I was their property, to use at their will for whatever nefarious purposes they saw fit. My whole purpose in life was for them. To do work for them, to show me off to their colleagues, to cower before their dumb might. I was bred to believe that I was worthless if I wasn’t in some way contributing to them. 

   I learned at an early age how stupid and ugly and unworthy of love I was, all thanks to them. I would stare in the mirror for hours wishing a different face was staring back. I would capsize in on myself, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible at all times, just to avoid any sort of attention because any attention would be bad attention. I spent my days in school dreading returning home and I spent my nights dreaming of a way to escape. I was downright terrified and it would have stayed that way. Their one mistake was letting me out.

   I met him when I was still a child. Like Cinderella herself, I was able to sneak away to a ball, just a school dance where kids are expected to drink punch and not fall in love. All I had to do was show up, just to prove that I wasn’t being held in a dungeon. He wasn’t supposed to take an interest in me. He wasn’t supposed to ask me to dance and he certainly wasn’t supposed to dance with me all night long. He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with me.

   From that night on, we were inseparable, despite all the effort they took to keep me hidden away. He would come up with ways to see me, after school study for extra credit, tutoring students for community service, sneaking underneath stairs and behind buildings to hold hands and kiss in the shadows. We were just kids in love. 

  The trouble came when he started to show me what life could be like. I had never known love to be caring and kind. I had always thought that love was harsh and demanding, unrelenting and cruel. No one had ever loved me like this before. 

  That’s why they hated him, once I knew what real love was like, they could no longer control me. They certainly tried, they tried to pull me down into the depths every single day and sometimes it would work for a bit. But it never stuck. I always knew that these people weren’t here for me and they didn’t deserve my misery. I could pull myself back up because of him. The older I got and the longer he loved me, I got smarter and better and happier. Of course they hated him. I didn’t belong to them anymore.

   Looking back, I slightly resent the idea that I needed to be traded off from one relationship to another, but I know I can’t be too hard on myself. I was young and I needed someone to help me. I never would have thought that I’d actually find someone, especially someone as wonderful as him. It really does feel like some sort of impossible fairy tale, he saved me when I couldn’t save myself. 

   They don’t have as much of a hold on me anymore. They’re gone from my life now, but not really. They survive in the worst of ways, at the oddest of times. In the blink of an eye, a memory will flash or a thought that I didn’t think will appear and it’s like I’m back there, scared and alone. At least now when that happens, I can curl up to him and he’ll put an arm around me in his sleep and I know I’ll be alright. I love him more than I ever thought was possible. And now, for one of the first nights for the rest of my life, I cuddle up to him and fall asleep smiling.