Secret Lover

Yes, she has a secret lover.

How long has this been going on? Well, apparently he just started hanging around after her mother died. I guess she was a little vulnerable then, and he simply never left. He lives with her, you know. Never asked her, just moved in one day and hasn’t left since. He doesn’t help her work or pay the bills, he just sits on her bed and waits. And waits and waits for her to come home to him each day. Now it suddenly makes sense why she entertains so seldom doesn’t it? She can’t bring friends over when he is home.

She takes him to bed with her each night and every time she wakes in the darkness, he is there.  She wakes in the morning with his head resting, so heavy, on her chest. She gets up, and though she leaves him behind as she goes out the door to work, to errands, to visit, he rests ever present on her mind, never leaving.

She can’t escape him. There is no where she can go without him calling her back, reminding her that she belongs to him now. And yet she’s desperately attached, she can’t let him go, she needs him. She can’t leave him yet. He has become familiar and though he can be so cruel, he is still a companion. Without him she feels alone, without him there is a void, a great unknown that she doesn’t yet know how to traverse. He is slowly killing her, but she can’t leave him. Not yet.

At times he slackens the noose a little, lets her believe she is in control, only to jerk it back in a sudden rage, leaving her choking for breath as he reminds her of his strength against her weakness. He will make her cancel her plans to go dancing tonight – the last time she went it left her too cheerful, too confident…too alive. He stood in danger of losing her. She will try and be social, try and be friendly, try to maintain other relationships, but it is hard, so very hard, because she must drop everything and come home to him once she hears his call. He recedes, only to reappear again in wild, unreasonable fury and deposits her, slumped on the kitchen floor, supper burning in the pan, her head in her hands and her lungs feeling like they can’t get air in between sobs that she has learned to make silent. She cannot bear for friends and neighbors to hear the vocal hallmarks of her weakness and endure the embarrassment of their attentions, the indignity of their sympathy. She cannot face the pitying glances that are meant to be kind, but are just sad reminders of how beneath them she is now, how far she’s fallen. They mean so well, but they don’t realize that they are all helpless. They cannot make him leave her. It must be her who leaves him.

He has asked her to marry him. To commit to being his, to belong to him forever. She still has strength enough left that she said no, she would not. She still hopes, still believes she will leave him someday. She will someday, she will, she tells herself.  Someday she will finally have enough, the sunshine will break through and she will walk, in painfully slow, aching steps, but she will walk, and leave her dark lover behind.

But every sip of alcohol, every lonely hour spent away from family and friends, he coaxes her. He whispers in her ear, feeds her strong drink, reminds her of how others have abandoned her, makes her believe he is all that remains to keep her company. He works away at her relentlessly, and each time he brings her a little closer to crumbling and uttering that fatal “yes”.

Yes, she has a secret lover. His name is Grief.