Yes, she stalked his Facebook, tried to hack into his emails and walked through town at 5pm knowing he would be driving through from work, but he didn’t know all that did he? Surely not, he was never that quick to the mark.
For some unknown reason to her, after everything he had ever said and done, or didn’t say and do for that matter, she had developed a very unhealthy obsession to something, someone, that was very bad for her. She was addicted to him like heroin, heroin that made her skin crawl, made her exhausted, ill, an addiction so ruthless, when she looked in the mirror she saw ugliness; she had forgotten how to love herself.
Living in the small town of Marshwood, it was impossible to escape his toxic behavior, her friends were his friends and his mother always insisted on telling her everything he was up to when they bumped into each other at the local Tesco every week. Whether this was pure coincidence or part of Julia’s abnormal obsessive behavior, she’d never admit to herself. Their social lives were unavoidably entwined and the first and last instance she decided to tell her friends she could no longer be a part of it, he called her bonkers.
Luckily for her, Julia was very close to her mother and seemed to have inherited the same mad man magnet gene that even her grandmother possessed. It bought them all closer together, because not only could they relate, but they could also offer their maternal advice.
‘Time is the best healer,’ said her mother as she placed her warm hands on Julia’s shoulders and gave them a sympathetic and motherly rub.
‘Two years, 6 months, 11 hours and 23 minutes since he chucked me on a social networking site, do you really want to talk about the healing power of time Mom?’ Julia felt bad for being so sarcastic, but realized her mother was giving her a stern look, not because of the abrupt remark, but rather for the disbelief that her daughter knew the exact time of when it all went wrong for her darling self.
‘He made her like this,’ Julia’s mother turned to her own mother, who looked up from her book and peered over her glasses, as if she hadn’t been paying any attention.
‘Don’t be so silly dear; she has just forgotten how to be herself for a little bit. Men don’t make us crazy, I blame the moon.’
Julia mirrored her mother as they both turned to each other and rolled their eyes. Julia’s Grandmother blamed the moon for everything, she believed it affected the way everyone behaved – Julia thought it was all nonsense.
Strange, the event Julia looked forward to most in life was getting over Him. Forget her 25th birthday, celebrations, the solar eclipse, promotions at work and all that jazz. She was planning a party bigger than the millennium for the moment she finally saw sense. It was just a matter of when that moment would be.
He had been with several different women since Julia; all of which He’d also left broken, with their heads and hearts pounding. Julia knew she wasn’t the only one, even though much of the time she felt as though she was. The only relationships, if you can call them that, that she had over the past two years were with similar sorts of men; narcissistic, unemotional, sadistic, incompetent, manipulative, you get the picture.
Her friends always said: ‘Get over him, get under someone else!’ This never worked, primarily because Julia’s home town was all gob and secondly, He would always find out about it and make her feel stupid and slutty afterwards.
‘What are you doing with him?’
‘It’s nothing serious.’ Julia would say, knowing well that the tone of voice he used was manipulative, and not jealous. Manipulative, not jealous. It was time she got herself a grip and forgot about Him forever…
…One Friday night, on the odd occasion, Julia decided to stay in and watch crap television. Graham Norton was getting on her nerves and the Real Housewives of Orange County just made her shout at the television. She noticed a bright light shining in from the window, and as she looked outside she was became mesmerised; she had never seen the moon look so full, so powerful and beautiful. It was past midnight, and Julia put a hoodie on over her pajamas to go for a walk in under the bright moon light. As she left her house, she looked up at the full moon and thought about what her Grandmother said to her. She noticed a figure just up the road. She knew it was Him, from the way He walked. He walked carelessly and lazily, ironically, the same manner in which he kissed, and touched and loved. As she got closer to him she could see the reflection of the moon in his eyes. The most life she had ever seen in his eyes since, well, since forever.
As He got closer, Julia could see He was drunk. Of course He was; it had been a Friday night.
She stood there frozen, and waited for him to come closer. He came right up to her, his face inches away from hers, and she could smell the Vodka on his breath. He looked different, unshaven, and rugged. He looked Ugly. Within that forty seconds stood in intense opposition, Julia’s mind flashed with all the awful things he had put her through, the lies, the cheating, and the manipulating.
She looked in his eyes and saw no guilt, no remorse, just lifeless eyes only brought to existence only by the moon. He smirked.
Of all the questions she could have asked him, What are you doing here? Where have you been? Why are you such an arse? She looked in his eyes and saw no guilt, no remorse, just lifeless eyes only brought to life by the moon.
‘I’m not crazy’ she said ‘ you are.’
And she walked off with the weight of the moon off her shoulders.
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