and then there were 4

It is a pitiable illusion, this notion that it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. A cruel, sentimental lie, no doubt conceived by those who have never felt the raw scorch of its aftermath. Would a woman savor the richness of a feast if she knew the night would end in agony, hunched over, her body rejecting what once felt so indulgent? Does the fleeting joy of a journey remain when the car lies wrecked on the side of some forgotten highway? No, the pleasure is devoured, obliterated, rendered meaningless by the violence of its consequence. If I, armed with all the bitterness of hindsight, could whisper to that tender fool I once was, this will tear you apart, this will hollow you out, I would surrender, without a flicker of hesitation, those moments when love felt like the unbearable sweetness of fullness. For to be filled is to invite the inevitable collapse, the violent emptiness that follows.

How strange it is, how utterly strange, that something once so vast, a force that shaped the very contours of my existence for years, now reveals itself as nothing but a hollow fragment, a triviality clothed in false significance. Twice now I have been made ill, literally ill, my body convulsing with the weight of it, disgusted by the sight of myself in this mirror of shame. The reflection, once unknown, now only brings nausea. And not because of the betrayals of others, no, this sickness comes from within. It is the deep revulsion of a woman who has betrayed herself, who has seen the hollow shell she has become, repeating the tired mistakes of a thousand nameless others.

I no longer believe in love, not as I once did. Nor do I believe in the kind of honesty where one soul lays itself bare to another. There are always corners of darkness, secret places no one will reveal. You will never truly know another person. The idea of intimacy, of absolute openness, is just another illusion, one we cling to because the alternative is too dreadful to face. But I see it clearly now. I know better. I know not to trust my instincts, for what I once called intuition was nothing more than the hopeful delusions of a fool. I misread what was before me, blinded myself to the truth, and if I cannot trust even myself, who can I trust? Certainly not another.

Yet this morning, I woke to the steady drumbeat of my body, the cold reminder of time’s relentless march. Fertility, that quiet tyrant, making its demands. Today, it whispers, today, if you desire, you could chase after the illusion of life. I could bow to the arithmetic of my dwindling chances, the urgent calculus of time slipping through my fingers. But for what? For a life so far from my reach that even the thought of it feels like a dream from which I have long awakened.

Another piece of me has been torn away, obliterated with the force of a catastrophe, leaving only fallout in its wake. The past is a wasteland now, memories poisoned with the radiation of betrayal. What once shimmered with life is now toxic, untouchable. A wound that cannot heal.

The mirror holds me, and my self-loathing swells to its peak. How could I have been such a fool? How could I have clung so desperately to a delusion so tired, so banal, that even in my suffering I feel like a caricature? The weight of my failures presses down with a force I can no longer bear. Surely, I must be finished stumbling over the same tired mistakes, the same well-worn paths of ruin.