I knew; knew from the very beginning that Brian was what I wanted. I knew that no matter how difficult he made it sometimes, he was the one who could give me what I wanted.
Not needed.
I can get by without Brian if I have to. I'm glad I don't have to any more, but if I did, I could.
But he gives me what I want. He gives me respect. He treats me as an equal.
See, that's the real mistake I made. It was a mistake I had a lot of help making.
To begin with, there are all the movies and books and songs and poems that teach you all those fairy tales about love and romance. You know the ones. The notion that when you love someone, they become your whole world. That when you love someone, they're all you need.
Bullshit! You're still you. You still have a whole range of other needs; a whole life apart from that other person. If you don't, then you're just pathetic. You're too weak, too much of a nothing to have anything to offer anyone.
Brian loved me enough to teach me that. He respected me enough to believe that I did have a life apart from him. And to believe that I could deal with him having a life apart from me.
He could have done what Ethan did. He could have told me all the pretty lies. He could have told me I was his whole world. If he had, back then at the beginning, he could have totally kept me on a string.
If he'd said or done even half the things that Ethan did, I would have stayed his adoring little twink forever. Or tried my best to, anyway. He could have kept me at home like a little pet and then gone out and fucked half of Liberty Avenue. As long as he was sweet to me when he came home; maybe bought me flowers occasionally; or took me out to dinner, I would have let him do anything.
Hell, if he'd lied about what he was up to, I would probably have chosen to believe him just to keep the lovely fantasy alive.
Brian had too much respect for me to do that.
See, here's where the really big mistake was, and like I say, I had lots of help making it …
Everyone told me that I needed to be with someone my own age, someone who'd see me as an equal, not as a junior partner. Someone with whom I could be an individual in my own right. They were all glad when I went off with Ethan because they said now I could have a chance at a more balanced, a more equal relationship.
And that was the real bullshit. And my real mistake.
From the beginning I was Ethan's trophy. His muse. In myself, to him, I was nothing. My only value was in my relationship to him, and to his music.
It was Brian who treated me as an equal. It was Brian who said to me - this is who I am. If you want to be part of my life, deal with who I am, not some romantic fantasy. It was Brian who believed in me, in my art, even when I lost that belief myself sometimes. It was Brian who said to me - be yourself, look after yourself, rely on yourself. It was Brian who taught me that I was strong enough to do that.
Sometimes they were harsh lessons he taught me. Maybe harsher than they needed to be. I don't know.
What I do know is that if I'd never met Brian, if Ethan had been my first, I'd probably still be with him now. And I would be miserable. He'd be romancing me one day, and cheating on me the next, and I wouldn't know how to deal with that. I wouldn't know how strong I am.
It was Brian who taught me that. Brian who paid me the respect of teaching me that my happiness was up to me. Brian who always, always, treated me as an equal, as someone as free to leave the relationship as he was, as someone as strong as he was, as someone whose needs mattered as much as his did. He never tried to make me believe that he could meet all my needs, anymore than he told me I met all of his. He made sure I learned that was bullshit from day one, even when I didn't want to hear it.
My biggest mistake was in not listening to the part of me that told me that Brian's harshness wasn't an indication that he didn't care, didn't love me, it was proof that he did.
It's not a mistake I plan to make again.