"I will never hurt you, Sora. Not once."

"My heart belongs to you"

"I will always be faithful, Sora."

"You are the only one that matters to me."

"I love you."

Lies.

Fake, hateful, heart-breaking, fucking lies.

All lies.

He never loved me. I know that now. It should have been obvious from the very start. The excuses, the disappearances, the rushed mornings and absent evenings. I should have seen it coming from the start, but I didn't. I believed every lie, every pathetic and utterly ridiculous excuse. I ignored the warning signs and continued loving him, continued entrusting him with my heart. I foolishly thought he would hold onto it and not let it fall, where it would shatter into a million pieces and I would have to pick up every single one of those pieces. Some of them cutting my hands, where it would crawl through the cut and under my skin like an infectious disease that had no cure.

The beginning was amazing. We got to know each other better, he gave me little romantic gifts, cute things that I just ate up. Stuffed teddy bears, chocolates, roses, flowers in general, sweet things, the stuff that I'd told him I absolutely adored. Because I did. It made me feel appreciated, adored, loved even. He was really a sweetheart, the perfect boyfriend even. Our first date was amazing. Absolutely fantastic. He took me to the peak of Twin Peaks mountain right before the sun set and we had a fantastic little picnic complete with dessert under the stars and dancing to the music that was gently flowing out of the speakers of the little radio he'd brought along. It was romantic, just like every girl, or guy in my case, imagines their first date with the person they fell in love with would be. That night was special. I had officially had the best night of my life and I was falling. I was falling so hard and fast that I worried he wouldn't be able to catch me. He did though, just as he promised me that he would. I guess you could say that that night started everything. That night was where he charmed me unimaginably. And, of course, I believed that I was charming him back. In reality, I wasn't. That's clear now.

Things only escalated from there. We went on dates more often than I had with any other person. We bought our own flat together. We bought a dog that I got to name Kurt. He proposed to me in the cafe we met each other in. I had begun to plan the wedding. You know, I was really, truly, excited about marrying him. I was so happy then, all was great, the world was wonderful, I had a fabulous man, and I was going to be getting married; I had no problems. People had always described me as carefree, but only because I never let my cares show. Why bother other people with my problems? But now, now I felt like I was carefree for the first time that I could remember. Carefree little Sora, living his life without a hitch, having fun, in love. It was great. Honestly. I'm telling the truth. Looking back on it, I wish it could have stayed that way forever. The way I felt then, well, I haven't been able to feel that way since.

It was around that time when I started noticing the little things. Riku, the man's name, he would walk into a room glaring, but as soon as he saw me, a smile would rush to his face. Nothing to worry about, he's just happy to see me, yes? No. I could tell the difference between Riku's smiles. We had been together for quite a while by now. The corners of his lips would twitch every now and then, like it was hard to keep the smile real when looking at me. His smile would never reach his eyes. He tried to conceal it, oh he did, but I could read his face like a book. And this book was telling me that it was fake, strained even. But I ignored those pesky thoughts, I mean, we were getting married, why would he need to force himself to smile around me?

Soon, he started staying at the office later and later. I put up with it (extra money couldn't hurt), and just smiled it off. It got to be so often though, I just couldn't deal with it. I'd go to bed at night, see him for five minutes in the morning, and then I wouldn't see him again until the next day. Although they were some nights that he wouldn't work late. Those nights he was always particularly irritable. I can recall a specific incident in which I attempted to ask him how his day went and if he would be needing to spend any more late nights at the office and he blew up. He screamed and screamed, yelling at me 'to get off his back, to stop hounding him all the fucking time, that I was being a whiny little bitch and I should be grateful that he was taking the late nights to pay for all the food my fat ass self ate'. It was the first time he'd ever insulted me like that, and it hurt. It hurt so much. I tried, I tried so hard to keep those tears in, but I just couldn't. They poured in thick streams down my face and over my round cheeks, his figure blurring and the spatula I had been grasping tightly in my hand dropped to the floor. He just walked out of the room and then the flat, disappearing into the windy night, leaving me all alone, crying. I never got an apology.

Soon after, Riku started claiming that he had to leave early in the mornings also, and that I shouldn't worry myself with getting up early for him. The first morning I tried to get up early so that I could make breakfast for him, he flipped out. He shouted at me and violently shoved me back into the plush comforter on our bed. He glared at me and walked out, slamming the door after himself, making me wince and slowly find a more comfortable position in bed. After that little moment, I never tried to get up in the mornings. I didn't get an apology that time either.

This time, it was business conferences. He would go away on weekend trips, and just sigh at me and shake his head, or yell, when I tried to convince him that he didn't have to go. The weekends were the only times that we got to spend time with each other. I quickly stopped pestering him about them though. I wasn't looking forward to another violent break down, and so I just went with it. Our wedding was coming up soon and I didn't want anything to ruin consquence, I just ignored every instinct I had and let Riku do as he pleased.

The wedding came and went. Riku was the perfect groom on that day and I really couldn't ask any more from him (or so I thought), so those two incidents and the suspicions I had were tucked away in a corner in the back of my mind for quite a while.

Riku let go of some of the office hours as time progressed after the wedding, and we finally had more time to spend together. He was back to his normal self, the gentleman that I had fallen head over heels for. I was happy once again.

But, all good things come to an end.

Riku started getting tense once again. He was agitated often, he would be provoked into rage at the smallest thing. For instance, I didn't have a chance to make him a portion of dinner one night, and when he came back from "work", he threw a fit. He pulled me out of bed and dragged me to the kitchen. Yelling at me, calling me a bitch, his bitch, a whore, a useless ho who couldn't even do the simplest of things. He punched me in the eye and grabbed my wrists so tightly that his fingers left bruises in a circle around them. He forced me to make dinner for him right there. He never apologized.

The next day I had lunch scheduled with my best friends Roxas and Kairi. I couldn't just ditch them, but I couldn't let them know what had happened to me. They would definitely get the wrong idea. Riku loved me. He was only stressed out and he needed something to take it out on. If I really loved him, then I would let him take it out on me. And I undoubtedly loved Riku. I ended up telling them that I was mugged the day before. They believed me.

The abuse continued. I let it go on because I was foolish. And besides, at least he wasn't yelling at me. When he was hitting me, he didn't think to insult me. It was evasion. And I was good at it.

The beatings did get progressively worse, just as the reasons did. Soon enough, he just stopped giving any reasons. He claimed that he didn't need reasons to justify his actions. I assumed he was right.

It got harder to come up with excuses to tell my friends. I even had a broken rib one time. I said I fell down the stairs. They didn't believe me. I didn't care.

On one night, Riku grabbed me off of the couch and threw me into the wall. I didn't care.

The verbal abuse didn't start up again until a year of beatings went by. I guess he got bored. I don't care why he did it, really. It was horrible. He said the meanest things. This time, I only tried not to care.

"You're useless, Sora!"

"You're just a useless little piece of shit!"

"Your friends all hate you, you know that? Every time you guys have lunch together, they come to me afterwards and complain about you. Why can't you just be easier to get along with, Sora?"

"You know what you are? A burden. A worthless burden"

"You were never worth my time."

"The world would be better off without you, Sora"

"I wish you would just die."

I cared.

I still loved him though. So I couldn't get him in trouble.

But I just couldn't take it anymore.

I walked in on him having sex with a woman in our bed yesterday.

He didn't even look at me while he told me to get out of the room.

He told me I was ugly and that he needed someone pretty to look at every once in awhile so he didn't have to just look at ugly every day.

He hasn't apologized yet.

I guess I never expected him to though.

I've spent today reflecting on him.

He never loved me.

He always lied to me.

Yet I can't leave him.

Or get him into trouble.

Because I still love him.

That brings me to now. I'm just lucky Riku has gun. Otherwise I'd have to go through pain to get to the end, and the way I figured, I've already been through enough. The abuse, years and years of abuse and cheating, it just does a number on a person, you know? I had started to believe what Riku was saying these days. And you know, maybe the world would be better off without me. Riku would be able to be with someone better, someone prettier, someone who he loved. And if I want what he wants, then I want myself dead too. Which I guess I do. I was angry in the beginning. After I'd figured it out. But thinking about it, just now, I'm not angry anymore. I love Riku, but he doesn't love me. I can't let him go, so I'll have to let myself go, just like he said he wanted. It's for the best anyway. Really. Just like that. Plain and simple. Nothing to be angry about. And I'm not. Because I don't care.

Goodbye, Riku.

I hope your life is better without me as a burden.

I love you.

bang.