Is it better to be alone than to keep bad company?

I was jittery and paranoid constantly; I was scared of the fact I might let my secret slip out. I was scared of what would happen if I did, and I was scared that I wouldn't care. I was just scared.
In the end, my inside showed on my outside. I told her the secret. I confided in my best friend that we were faulty. She called me awful things, I was a disloyal bitch and a liar - and I was. I hadn't been honest. But I needed to hear those things to know I was doing right, and she needed to say them, if only to confirm that we had separated and that our path had forked. I would go on one way, she the other. Our hands were clasped right up until the last second, but we had fallen out of step a long time before. It took the precise cruelty borne of the utterly complete link between us to inspire the realisation. She and I knew which buttons to press in each other to make that link more and more tenuous until it severed. That was our relationship: in the end our blessing bit us back.

Sitting cross-legged, the same.

Our lives became one life. There was no me without her, or her without me, I don't think. We became a couple straightaway, and didn't stop being one until we stopped being anything. Our names were one word by the end.

We ran around town. We drank cider on sunny mornings, chai on quiet evenings, gin the rest of the time, and went to parties hosted by people we didn't know. At moody gigs we sat on the floor. We would live together as soon as we could. But only if I agreed to the explicit request we didn't also live with my beautiful friend. Sara. Sara was NOT ALLOWED. It wasn't too much to ask really, and three's a crowd anyway. I agreed with her. That was when her infection of me went septic.
She kissed my boy in a club. I smoked a cigarette and forgave her. I photographed her naked, she did the same for me. We both enjoyed the experience. Then, she visited my boy in the middle of the night. Wearing my dress.
I wanted to forgive her, and that made me realise I could not. I forgave her on the outside but not on the inside. And so it was for a while.

Irregular choice?

She remains the only person I have ever met to have brought me a cuppa at the bus stop. She also remains the only person I have ever met to have been cruel enough to have reduced me to tears in a university cafeteria. She was a very intriguing mix of things, Sophie was.
We had catchphrases, in-jokes, nicknames. And then we had one, blazing row. In the beginning I thought we would always be together, that that was how we belonged. Throughout the course of our obsession with eachother she did lots of things, and I did lots of things, to change my mind.

Oh God, I was head over heels. She was infectious: gruff, giggly, often rude, always in charge, a year older, refreshingly none the wiser for it, cool. I was in awe: trying hard not to be shy, just about able to decipher a camera, glittery with chunky jewellery, peroxide blonde. We fell for eachother, but I think it was some girl's shoes that sparked the initial attraction. It didn't matter then. We had met. We had connected like jigsaw pieces. We were very hard to separate; we were part of the same picture.

and then...bye.

I first realised after I'd known him for three weeks. He opened his morning eyes and they were love filled, same as i knew mine were. He didn't have to say anything, because I knew, but he said anyway. He said it, the smallest and biggest of sentences, and then I said it back to him. My life divided right there, into before and after that instant: before I was loved, and after I was loved. Before I loved and after.
That morning, we didn't get up. We stood on my bed and danced.

I first realised after I'd known him for nine months and four days. His being a sulky painter was something I'd always, always found hugely compelling, I would sit for him sometimes and swear I'd never feel more deliciously, erotically ignored. I was all that mattered; but we both knew that in those times, my inside could have been anyone's inside: I, I, didn't mean shit. It was heady. But on that day his strop permeated everything and it wasn't confined to his paint brush and his eyes when he looked at me. It was in his eyes when he looked at everything. I could feel his disappointment in me. I was an inconvenience on that day, and it made my vision suddenly pin-sharp and clear. I realised, I think we both realised. He didn't want all of me, just some of me. Just the bits he could paint.

I remember us, now, as a wonderful, beautiful story. I thought it had ended wrong, but I was wrong. It was meant. I remember him and me, and I think God, thank you. Thank God I have felt that: that someone was perfect, and thank God I hurt so deeply when I realised he wasn't perfect, and neither was I. And when I realised that was ok. Because it means now I can smile, and say, 'It was you I loved, I loved you. Thank you.'

Start as we mean to go on....

Well, I did love. I loved completely. My love was an artist; twinkly eyed and self absorbed, he held me inside him for almost a year. But then, then. I don't know how it happened, but the space I had always occupied inside him wasn't mine anymore. He had taken it back, and I had become the intrusive lodger. I left. He begged. I still left.
It was a fist to the gut, doing that to us. The bruise was black and ugly, and stayed on me for a long time afterward. I was sore for a long time.

We met in a park. I was desperately searching the depths of my gigantic handbag for a light for the cigarette clamped between my lips, he shoved a pink one under my nose. There was a silver ring on his index finger, his nails were dirty. He said, 'better?' I said, 'yes'. He gave me that lighter, I've still got it.
I saw him again the next day - well, I did that thing where you go back to the same place to see if they're there which is very nearly random chance, if not bona fide - and we introduced ourselves. It's Sam. And that was it.

I don't usually do this...

I don't usually do this...I don't. To be honest, I wouldnt have said I was the type. For a start, there is the mortifying thought that someone might actually read this. Then, naturally, there is the question of what I'm going to say. So.
Well, I'm never going to begin until I begin, I feel thats pretty much a fundemental, and a great way to make yourself say things out loud - I am beginning, from now, (actually, I looked at the time and realised it was 23 minutes past the 23rd hour of this day and all i had done was gone to the dentist, so it was from about then), to be honest. I want to try and do it, to cut the bullshit.
Like, I loved someone. That is the first time I've phrased that in the past tense. Feels wierd. Feels shitty. And I know soon I'm going to need to be at that point where I can always phrase it in the past tense. No slip-ups. No, whoops, I might still love you. None of that.
I'm also selfish. I think I hurt him, but I also think that his hurt wasn't as deep as my own, and that pisses me off. Secretly, obviously. God, I havent told anyone. But I don't know who you are, if you are anyone, so you can know.
And there you have it, you see? I am a liar. My version of honesty involves anonymous truth telling to strangers that may not exist. None of this is even real. But I am here, telling it, so does it matter?