"It was Me"
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
From "Acquainted With the Night" by Robert Frost
Don't you sit there and look at me with those deep, innocent brown eyes, looking worried and nervous, and tell me now that you didn't know.
How could you not know? It was me. The girl who was your best friend since the third grade. The girl that joined the Harmony Hellcats softball team just to spend more time with you, even though I hated sports at the time. The girl who would help you through English class, through every class, sitting up with you the night before exams to coach you through all the notes. The girl who had loved you as long as she could remember, who was at your side every moment until she came.
You look at her bright blonde hair and empty, vapid blue eyes, her pale porcelain-doll skin and see everything you've ever wanted. A girl who was sweet and innocent. Helpless. A soft, twittering princess for you to save, maybe. Everything I'm not.
I was like her once. Once, long ago, I bloomed in the promise of your love, bathed in the light of your affections. But I lost my innocence for you, after she came. I gave it willingly, sacrificed it on the all-consuming altar I'd built in your honor as I tried every dirty, filthy trick in every book to make you love me. I dragged my soul through real darkness and literal demons so I could reach you, through places crueler and colder then you could ever imagine.
But I bore it willingly. My heart beat fast with every near-triumph, and I imagined how you would take me in your arms and whisper all the words I'd always wished for. No trial was too great, no price too painful. But in the end my innocence was the price. It had to die slowly these past few years, in painful, gasping fits and in slow, writhing crawls in the face of constant failure. And in those nights spent alone that burned and seared like the hell I've been through.
And yet, a few nights ago, I managed the greatest trick of all. I put on her face, that perfect princess mask of ivory and gold you so desired, and wore it, close to me, like a shadow. I cast away all my inhibitions, (and my clothes) let them flutter to the ground like the last dark leaves of November. I spoke with her honeyed voice. I smiled with her rose-red lips. And I let every last dream I'd ever had die except the one of your love.
That night you weren't with her, and you know it. Her essence might have clouded my face, obscuring the physical, but my muddied soul burned brightly. The feel of my very self in her pallid body must have been as searing and unexpected as a heat wave in December, and equally as unmistakable. It was fed by the entwining flames of passion, lust, and love each of us held for the other. All those aching years I'd spent yearning from afar came blazing into one magical, pulse-pounding night. And you felt it as I moved against you, as I gave you all love that had been frozen inside of me, waiting desperately to be freed. The final barrier between us, the two who had shared so much before she came, finally shattered that night, exploded, melted in the heat of our dual passion, and all that I felt for you bled hotly from my lips, my heart, and from my own stained and battered soul.
So don't look at me like that, creasing your brown in confusion, telling me in that kind, earnest tone that we were "victims of a spell". The magic that helped me slip on her skin only revealed to us both that the feelings that tortured me in secret for years are reciprocated. By you, although you now try to deny and hide it.
It was me that night. I was the one you made love to, and you know it. You felt the connection, that icy, sweet fire burning us both, what you and your sweet little porcelain-doll princess can never share. Mine was the name you whispered in my ear as the moon rose, as I wore her lily form, your breath as gentle on my ear as the first stirrings of a butterfly breaking out of a glittering chrysalis. From deep in the your throat, from the warmth of your heart discovering my own, came a single, hushed word.
"Kay."