My story started once upon a time when I kissed a boy who didn’t belong to me. I tried to fix what I broke, but fell deeper in love. I promised myself I would be nothing like my mother, who cheated, and stole, and lied, who raised me to do the same. I promised I would be different.
Trying to be better, I was worse.
I’m a cheater.
I’m a liar.
I’m a coward.
I’m a thief.
I stole his happily ever after when I slept with him on his wedding day, then I married a man I didn’t love to run from my fate, a man who raped me, a man I still had feelings for, a man I wanted so badly to be a hero.
Because then maybe that meant I was less of a victim.
I was only given one story, and you wrote the ending before you ever heard my beginning.
But, dear world…
YOU. DON’T. GET. TO. DICTATE. MY. PAIN.
You don’t get to tell me how I have to behave just so I can wear the mantle of victim.
I am a victim.
I was raped.
Even if I went back to him a thousand times.
Even if I fell in love with him a thousand more times.
It still fucking happened.
You don’t get to tell me that because I made a mistake, it makes me less of a victim.
You don’t get to tell me that.
Dear world, I don’t think you’re the villain either.
I think our roles have become corrupted.
It’s too easy to pretend they aren’t.
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if everything was black and white?
If we hated who we were supposed to hate, and loved who we were supposed to love?
But…if I hated who I was supposed to hate, then I never would have loved who I shouldn’t have.
I never would have loved him.
So, dear world.
I am not Cinderella.
I am not a stepsister.
I am not the woman I hoped to be.