PROLOGUE

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She kind of wants to tell him that she's not carpet, that he can't walk all over her as he pleases. She's done with that.

And she's not a dog, either, so he can quit with the collar and leash and let go already.

Because here's how it is: one moment she's madly in love (cooking him meals and rubbing his feet and smiling at his odd quirks) and the next she's cursing his existence, rolling her eyes in anger at everything he's ever said to her, and she wishes she had taken off her glasses all those years ago when they'd first met, because damn, how fogged those had been.

Looking at the world through rose-tinted lens is a pretty thing to do, the way it distorts fake truths and twists even the most complex lies into pretty little satin ribbons. These are the same lens that paint excuses and broken promises in shimmering hues of yellow and gold, the same lens that make a sociopath's warm breath on your hips and between your thighs feel like the sweetest gift. Because that mouth and those hands feel like Heaven if you're blind, and fingertips that should burn and whispers that should steel the flesh from your bones somehow don't.

And these are things she had to learn the hard way—that infidelity and its malicious, saccharine lies sneak up on you in your most blissful state. Infidelity (with his mind, that is) appears when you least expect it, when you think the world is perfect and okay (while still recognizing its anomalous corruption)—because as long as you have him, and you are both together, then none of that outside stuff really matters, because it disappears entirely. The pain—that's rendered nonexistent when he smiles at you and actually means it, when you've both returned home from a long day at work and don't need to say anything because the silence is okay and it's comfortable as you sit at the table over dinner, exchanging tired but warm eyes at each other. And pain doesn't exist when you laugh at one of his awful jokes and his eyes light up like he's won the lottery, and pain is nonexistent when he palms at your waist beneath the covers as you lay nestled against him, and his fingertips curl over your sides and that feels infinitely right.

Until you find out the truth, that is. When those glasses come off, it's startling the way the world changes, and the sudden clarity will knock you on your back and seize the air from your lungs. Suddenly everything is dirty and covered in soot, and summer-time yellows and greens fade into the browns and pale grays of winter. And it's depressing, earth-shatteringly sad. Because everything you've ever known, everything you thought, every lie you believed was the truth—well, that's all gone to shit, and you're left realizing that the collar he'd kept on you was to his benefit, not yours. Because he didn't want you to get too close to the truth. Because there were signs, of course, there are always signs—the way he ignores your calls and misses important dates in your life in favor of a case, the way he leaves you in the middle of the night or forgets you're even there.

Because in the end, she knows she will always play second fiddle to his mind—and that his brain has always governed his heart.

But of course—she was wearing those pretty little glasses, and that, even more than his damn leash, shielded her from realizing it from the start.

So she finds herself angrier with herself than with him, because somehow she feels as if she should have known better, she feels as if she shouldn't have been so naïve. She shouldn't have let herself fall for that fake charm and those lies.

But she'll be damned if she lets him win, if she lets him manipulate her thoughts further. Because he's the liar, and even if he's strung her along like a paper chain link for over eight-years, she knows she's stronger than this, and she'll be okay.

One day, she'll be okay.

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before you all read further, I just want to warn you that this OC will be very different then what you're used to seeing on here. she is not going to be a genius and she's going to be very flawed. she is, essentially, the complete opposite of sherlock. but I honestly think there's some charm in that. so if you're here looking for a mary-sue, I suggest turning back now.

also, a few chapters in this story will be told from the pov. of other characters (john, molly etc.)

please review!