“Oh, but, like I said … you didn't really do anything to stop it, did you?”
“Of course I did!” Darius responded, closing his eyes, refusing to look at the woman he once loved, hurting herself. “I tried everything. I got you therapy.”
“Yeah, but you really didn't give me what I really needed or wanted, did you?”
“How could I? What was I supposed to do? Were we going to go through that all over again?”
Darius looked up at her pleading, noticing the slices in her arm slowly healing.
“Yeah, you do like that, don't you?” she said. “That's why you never did anything to stop it. You wanted to see me do it. You wanted to see me hurt myself.”
“You know that's not true,” Darius replied.
“You know you did! You know you loved it! You loved every second. You act like the victim and like I tortured you. But you loved watching me crash and burn, didn’t you? You loved watching me lower myself.”
“No. I never did!”
“Oh, so yeah … I'm the crazy one. You think I enjoyed that? You think I enjoyed deteriorating and becoming the monster that I was? Ha! that’s so funny. At least now I really am a monster. Not figuratively. Although there are some things I enjoyed about lowering myself … like lowering myself on your friend Brad.”
“Fuck you, Allison! Don't try and use that to manipulate and hurt me. I'm done letting you manipulate and hurt me.”
“Are you? Are you sure?” she said. “Am I really the bad guy here? I don't know. It seems to me like you didn't do enough. You didn't try hard enough. You left me to rot. You didn't do a thing to stop anything that happened. You didn't do a thing to stop my self-destruction when you could have. You could have easily just by … just by forgiving me … just by accepting me.”
“I always accepted you. I stayed with you when everyone I knew … everyone I knew … said that I should leave you,” Darius responded.
“Oh yeah, that's nice,” Allison said. “Sure, you stuck it out with me longer than your friends and family thought you should have and you think that deserves a reward? You think you deserve a trophy for that? What about doing something of substance? What about actually helping me?”
“I did everything I could. I took time away from a work. My life revolved around trying to make you feel better,” Darius said.
“Well you didn't try very hard,” she said. “If anyone is to blame for us being in the situation we are in right now, it's you!”
“Yeah, right! I'm the one to blame for you fucking a train-load of men?” Darius said with biting cynicism.
“Oh, you haven't gotten over that yet,” Allison said. “I mean … let's not exaggerate so much. I think it might have been half a train load, ha-ha. But I'm not going to feel guilty about that,” she said, looking at him, wearing that same innocent and charming face she'd had at dinner … and years before when they had first met. “I needed stimulation, honey … and I wasn't getting that kind of stimulation from you. So yeah, I had to get it elsewhere. I may not have been honest about it, but that's just because you are such a jealous ninny.”
“You lied to me. You were cheating on me with multiple people. Friends. Co-workers. Anyone willing! That's what you are like … and that's why you self-destruct. It had nothing to do with me and everything to do with your own lack of self-confidence and not being able to not sleep with anyone who was remotely nice to you.”
“Oh, you are a psychiatrist now,” Allison responded. “Well, you don't even know the whole story anyway, and I didn't sleep with all of those guys anyway. Just because I was going out for dinner with other people doesn't mean that I was fucking them.”
“Oh, my God! How naive do you think I am, Allison?” he said. “This is ridiculous! Don't try and tell me that what I know happened … what we both know happened, didn't happen! And don't try and use what happened as an excuse. You know what I mean!”
“Know what you mean?” said Allison. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean. Or at least I am pretty sure I know what you mean. I think you mean that I went through the most excruciating and unbearable emotional pain of my life, and you sat back and watched, and let me crash and burn. You let me self-destruct and take a complete nosedive because it wasn't convenient for you to deal with me.”
“That's not right and that's not fair! You know that!” Darius glared back.
“Well, like we already established, honey dear,” she responded sarcastically. “We know life isn't fair and the situation we are in now is what we are in now. The rest of that doesn't matter, period.”
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