Page 33

Sundrop: September 1st, 2024

I am crying and want to be sick because Cole reached out and I told him to fuck off basically which is good because I said what I had been wanting to say. The weight of it sitting so hard and heavy on my chest was stopping me from focusing. Yet I guess part of me really hoped he was being genuine this whole time with me. Seems like it was nothing but a big joke to him. That I meant nothing to him at all. I was right and it hurts.

I’m sad right now.

Me: What do you want?

Cole: I just kinda missed talking to you

Me: Are you fucking kidding me?

Me: Forgetting Graham for a moment.

Do you not remember why we stopped talking last year? And what brought us to not be talking in 2022? You rejected me. I wanted to date you. I asked you to be with me, I gave you lots of cute little speeches about how I wanted to be with you. And you said “I don’t know”

Me: “I don’t know” and “I just kinda missed talking to you” are up there as some of the worst things you’ve ever said to me. And why, after rejecting me, do you come bac k again, over a year later? Because you’re hoping I'll do what? Flash you my tits again? The only way you will ever see my tits again would be upon giving me an engagement ring. Otherwise, you can fuck off because I only entertained you because I wanted you, I liked you, I had feelings for you. I was so happy to hear from you last year and then you “I don’t know” responded to me asking you out, me shooting my shot for the, I’ve lost track how many times I tried with you. But that was a “yes” or “no” question last time and just like consent, only a yes is yes, anything else is a no… I don’t know? How could you possibly want to be with someone and then tell them “I don’t know”?? I was sure about you. It was a yes from me. was… until I then saw all those pictures online with Graham and that hurt worse than anything else.

A little while later, I sent him another message.

Me: I’m looking for my soulmate. I’m confident that my soulmate would never be friendly, hang out or pose for pictures with that man who beat me and raped me. Never speak to me again.

I almost want to feel sorry for him, it’s been almost 15 months since the last time we spoke. I laid my heart bare at his feet and he shat all over me. My confessions of feelings for him and telling him exactly what I wanted from him. I was so confident that he wanted me too. I was convinced he would say yes and instead I got what I always get from him, “I don’t know.” Like consent, anything less than an enthusiastic YES is a no, and I don’t know, I shake where I sit on the edge of my bed and try to contain my anger.

An “I DON’T KNOW” I DON’T FUCKING KNOW?? That is worse than a no, a no I would have at least respected but after all these years, all this time… I don’t know? Is that all I deserve?

Fuck him.

He was right, I do deserve better than him.

I am glad I finally got to tell him how I feel though, I’m grateful to him for that opportunity. That betrayal hurt worse than anything anyone has ever done to me. I expected shitty behaviour from other shitty people, but I never expected Cole to behave like that.

I had held him to a higher standard. Why? When he’s just the same as every other guy I’ve ever known. Fucking coward. He is a coward because he knows, he knows I would not have done that if it was the other way around. If someone had hurt him, I would never have cosied up with them, posed for photographs at parties and nights out, hung around them. Laughed at their jokes, smiled for group shots.

How great it is to have a huge group of friends, except for when they are awful fucking people. As I said, if he hangs around with awful people, it must be because he too is an awful person. I might be fucking crazy, they all know it, they might not know exactly how fucking crazy. I’m not the kind of crazy they keep talking and gossiping about, but at least I’m not a lying, cheating, rapist paedophile who likes to beat women.

If that’s who Cole chooses to associate with, does that mean he is also the same?

Maybe he never liked me like that at all. Maybe the first time I reached out to him he screenshotted my message to him and sent it to the group chat. The one I used to be a part of. Maybe Graham has been controlling the strings this whole time, feeding him what to say to me. Maybe he’s been sharing the pictures and videos I sent him with Graham. Maybe he’s seen everything.

That somehow is the worst possible thing I can imagine and yet, do I think Cole is capable of that? I’ve learned that anyone is. Graham absolutely is capable of it. He’d manipulate Cole, make him share those extremely private photographs AND videos. The thought of Graham knowing anything about where I live, what I do or how my body looks now, the things I like, the very private things that I shared with Cole… The thought makes me feel sick, deeply involuntarily sick to my stomach. I can’t allow myself to spiral on this one.

I’ll murder Cole and Graham today if I spin out like this.

Graham will be one of my victims one day, he signed himself up for that the very first time he raised his hands to me. That first time he raped me, I didn’t even fully understand it was rape. I’ve been so used to sexual violence throughout my life, those lines have always been blurred. Truthfully it was talking about sex with Cole back when we first started dating that I realised how wrong certain things where I had been led to believe by men. Things I accepted as fact rather than knowing they were rape, coercion or manipulation.

You’d think someone like me can’t be manipulated. I can lie and weave a story whenever my mouth opens, it’s instinct, ingrained in my very being. It’s how I communicate. I don’t think about it so the chess pieces being deliberately put into place by Graham and how he communicates with others is intentional, planned. I can’t imagine planning anything too far ahead, so I am easily manipulated.

My arrogance also gets in my own way.

Believing that Cole liked me because he said he liked me.

Believing he wanted to date me because he said he wanted to date me.

Assuming he wanted to have sex with me because he said he wanted to have sex with me.

Believing he cared about me because he told me he cared about me.

Like when he told me more than once that he had feelings for me, so I believed that he had feelings for me.

I hate when reality kicks in.

I hate this modern day of technology. This conversation should have been done face to face not via messages back and forth.

If you were with him right now you might kill him.

Yes.

No.

Maybe…

Do I like that idea? I’ll have to think about it.

I stand in my bedroom, looking around the walls and the floor. How clean and neatly ordered it is. Sometimes I forget what I had grown used to, and the shock of the cleanliness is too much. I stare at the walls, the windows and the floor, free of clutter and dust. No mould or dirt. There are no cobwebs stuck to every surface, every corner, every crevice.

I don’t obsessively clean the way I used to, living alone I’ve found I don’t have to. Everything is neat because I am neat. Everything is clean because I mostly take care of my space and surroundings. I’m not scared here, in this home. I am deeply alone and lonely though, never more so than when I’m faced with constant rejection.

Just like Cole did on September 1st, I also had a friend I hadn’t spoken to in a long time reach out to me. They had bought me a book and sent it to me. I was struck a few days later by someone else getting back in touch. What is in the water or astrology this September that so many people are getting in touch with me?

James, I have to remind myself of who he was. The blonde I dated back in June. We had first spoken in November 2023 on one of the many dating apps I create a profile and later deleted. I ghosted him almost immediately. Then we dated for those two weeks in June, before he realised that I am a real person with complex emotions and a lot of trauma. He held my hand and ate me out. I think he had his mouth between my legs but never actually hugged me properly.

I really want someone to just hold me.

Still, he messages me and asks me how I am. How am I? Murderous, villainess, looking to hurt someone. I can’t tell him that of course, I surprise myself by thinking, maybe I should tell him exactly how I am feeling. So, that’s how I really am if I am capable of being so reckless and careless.

Do I want to speak to James? He was borderline narcissistic, seemed to be love bombing me but for someone like me? It’s hard to tell because in my opinion you should want to worship the ground I walk on from the moment you meet me. How am I to tell when someone is being genuine, and someone is using it to manipulate?

Maybe he was genuine, and I frightened him. He’s back though, isn’t he? I am still angry at Cole so I take the distraction, I could use the distraction. I haven’t had sex since? Gods above, Satan below it’s been far too long. I need someone to fucking touch me.

James has blue eyes and blonde hair just like Cole. Just like I realise is my actual type when it comes to men. James is extremely pretty but he’s not Cole.