Word Without Flesh

Content notice: this story contains metaphorical and hypothetical declarations by a character to harm themself and others, and focuses on a toxic relationship. It also contains a couple of suggestive albeit non-explicit sentences.

January 1st

I've decided to journal our relationship. Every romance that came before you was a whirlwind—by the time my friend pulled me out I felt drained, like more had been taken from me than I had offered. 

So, this time, I'm going to document every moment of our time together, to remind my future self not to fall for the likes of you. Like I have already.

I want you. You're all I can think about. I've known you but one day and I feel the need to devote every second of my life to you. I should have quit before you came to me, but you were too witty, too exciting, too beautiful to ignore. So I began writing you, just a little something to get you talking the next day, then went to bed while everyone else partied. I imagined you popping open a bottle of champagne as I drifted off. Some of it gets on you, wrinkles you.

I woke up with your words already in my head. You called for me, and I answered. You poured your heart out to me, and every word of it charmed me. From 7 in the morning to 2 at night, I wrote everything that flowed from you through me, and though our dialogue spans only a day, I feel like I know every one of your details, every path you will walk—

—yet I know better. My reason tells me not to trust you, because mysteries like you are subject to sudden changes in mood and are full of unpleasant surprises.

—doubly yet… what is better than a romance, but a mystery romance?

January 7th

I have scarcely slept an hour in the past week, staying up past dawn with you. For every word I write, you have a dozen more waiting for me. And I don't mind that at all. I know you don't give a damn about what I want to tell you, and I'm content saying what you want me to say.

January 8th

I'm angry. I'm angry at you, because I had a date with Diane and missed it because you wouldn't let me go. She called and asked where the hell I was and it took every gram of self-control to pull myself away from you only to tell her I was bailing on her. 

January 9th

I need you. 

February 5th

Diane called me. "If your new project is so important that we cannot have our weekly girls' night anymore, I hope you write your happily-ever-after—because I am not waiting around to see if your dream comes true. Do not try to contact me."

And then she hung up.

She and I have been close since kindergarten. Were. Were. And now… I feel like I've lost a sister. I've lost her. I can't believe I've lost her. 35 years of faithfulness and loyalty. And now she's toppled a monument to friendship.

—

No. I toppled it. Because I've decided you're more important than she is.

February 6th

I feel better after last night. Your story and your intimacy cheered me up.

But… I know the only reason you went in that direction was because I needed a bit of escape. Some day, when I come to grips with what I've lost, with your insatiable need for struggle and intrigue, your story will change. You won't be so reassuring.

So I'm just going to lie to myself. I'm going to tell myself that losing the most important person in my world will be worth it. 

March 4th

You've been wonderful to me. Thank you.

I haven't seen or heard from her in 4 weeks.

I can't stop crying. Even with you, even with the infinitude of places I can explore with you, even with all the ways of making love I've researched and tested within you, nothing you have to offer me can replace her.

March 11th

I called her. It went straight to voicemail.

I texted her. No response. 

I tried Messenger. Blocked.

Twitter. Blocked.

This is the cost of taking your words to heart.

March 18th

I called Andrea, asked about Diane.

"She's fine."

"Is she there?"

"Yes."

"Can I talk to her?"

"We're busy, Christine."

"Oh."

"I need to get back to what we were doing."

"Can you ask her to call me?"

But the line was already dead. 

April 1st

8 weeks without Diane. I've accepted I'm never going to see her again.

Thank you for being here for me, for easing the pain and the loneliness. You have a dozen unique characters within you, each of them compelling—if occasionally raw or unpleasant. I don't mind your flaws. I'll fix you.

April 2nd

I'm still not over her. I cried. I isolated myself in my room. You didn't do anything to help. I was so lonely, and you, the one I turn to for comfort nowadays, were on my computer screen, waiting for me to come to you.

You've never known loneliness.

You're selfish.

I don't want to see you again.

May 5th

I haven't seen you in a month.

She finally responded, to tell me to stop trying to get a hold of her. I said I had decided to leave you half-finished, that I was completely over you.

We talked for the first time in 3 months. It was refreshing. For all the words you have… I know damn well you'd tell anyone else the same damn things you've told me. And you don't listen. You're incapable of listening. You can only tell me what I want to hear, what I want you to say. She listens. And she told me the truth. Something I already knew but couldn't bear hearing from someone else: you're bad for me. As long as I'm writing you, I won't be satisfied until everyone knows what you want them to know and wonder what you want them to wonder, until they've suffered through your twists and turns. And—if you ever got to that point, I'd want our relationship to bear fruit. I wouldn't stop at just one, either, I would wring every drop of inspiration out of you to satisfy my need to create, I would keep pumping them out until I was either physically or mentally incapable of producing more. I would love every one of them as much as I love you, and I would lose myself in them the same way I lost myself in you. 

In case my words aren't clear: this is it. You're going in the recycle bin. 

June 3rd

I'm disgusted with myself. I started thinking about you. I remembered all the good things you've done for me, just how sexy you can be, how romantic, how exciting, how easy it is to get lost in you. And I can't abandon something three-quarters of the way to completion. I can't resist the temptation to go all the way with you, to see you bound, to see your spine curve as I spread you open and explore the pleasures within you.

Even if that means risking a lifelong friendship—which by the skin of my teeth I rescued from the fireplace. We've been best friends all over again for 4 weeks, once I promised to remove every scrap of you from my life and throw them in the recycle bin. I couldn't keep away from you for the whole 30 days, and here you are, waiting faithfully for my return—just a day short of disappearing from my life altogether, forever. Forgotten. I worked so hard to get my sanity back, and I endured so much heartache for so long only to throw it all away and come crawling back to you. I wish she understood just how much I need you.

You are my fantasies made as real as they can be.

June 9th

No one compares to you. Not even her.

June 10th

My heart only has room for you, but she claimed a space for herself long ago. As much as I want for you to be my everything, as much as I wish to devote every waking moment and every fevered dream to you, My Love, I could not withstand losing her a second time.

You don't want to witness my heartbreak. You suffer as I suffer, we are one—and have been from the beginning. So you understand that I must give up a few hours each Monday to placate her.

June 11th

When I was with her last night, I could think only of you.

June 24th

I can't stand my time with her—because I am away from you, because I am forced to socialize with someone who tried to tear us apart—to erase you from my life—because I know that if I so much as mention you she will abandon me again.

She has power over me. The only one I want to control me is you. She pulls on the strings of loyalty, manipulates me with guilt, and presses the point of her knife to my chest to coerce me to abandon the love you and I have built. I am compelled to do as she says even as she does nothing for me in return, I am guilt-ridden when I have done nothing wrong, and in spite of all our time together she is ever ready and willing to resect my heart once more and, this time, bury it in the landfill.

Please don't misunderstand me—I wouldn't kill myself over her. I would only do that for you. If it would magnify your beauty or wit or intrigue, anything is within the realm of my will, because your desires are mine, your accomplishment will be thanks to my devotion and industry.

If it might make you beloved and popular, I would sell my soul.

If it would make you more perfect, I would gut you and, with what I harvest from your carcass, compose a new you.

July 1st

She made a comment about you, and it took all of my self-control not to strangle her. I do not wish to repeat her words with the mouth I would use to kiss you or the fingers I would use to touch you—if only you were before me in the flesh—but this journal is for me to remember, so I must record the precise reason I am about to cut her out of my heart and feed her to the wolves.

"Christine," she said with a gentle smile so soft that it could smother one in slumber, "I am so relieved that you rid yourself of that vile waste of time. You are a professional and a lady, you are better off not being associated with vulgar trash. You are an artist and a celebrity. You have standards."

She has power over me. I must take it back.

July 3rd

"Christine…" began Diane. "Let me get this straight. After begging me to accept you back into my life, you called my spouse and told her I have been having multiple affairs with my subordinates."

"Yes. And?"

"Are you insane?"

"Did I lie to her? Did I leave anything out?"

"Why the hell are you trying to ruin my marriage?"

"You called my passion 'vulgar trash'."

"Oh my God." The betrayal, the shock in her voice were bitterly insulting—but all the more delicious. "You've been screwing around with that boorish waste of half a year of your life, haven't you?"

"'Boorish'? My love is the most witty, sophisticated, and charismatic magnum opus to have ever visited me."

"'My Love'! You are deluded. You speak as though that wordy refuse is a human being. You've fallen head over heels for a lie you tell yourself when you're feeling insecure about your abilities when you ought to be writing respectable books for your publisher to fill shelves."

"I'm in a happy relationship."

"You're sick. You need help. But I'm done trying to give it to you. This is the eighth time you've fallen for your own screwed up need for a screwed up romance, and I don't want to see your self-absorption hurt you again. I love you like a sister. It kills me to see you go through this yet again, after you promised to abandon this trash that's going to screw up your career. I must go as far away from you as possible so that I never hear about what a colossal disaster this ends up being." Her voice strained under wretched envy that would never see resolution as she concluded, "Chrissy… Go screw yourself."

I've accomplished precisely what I aimed for. She is no longer a part of my life. Everything she had to say until now mattered far more than it should have. Her words were always poison in my ears. I don't have to hear her insult you ever again.

You are everything to me. I will not stop until you have everything you need, until you are the pinnacle of creativity. I will share you with the world.

My publisher is going to love you.