From the moment I first saw you, I knew that you would be my end.
There was just something about you. Your ability to be both alluring and terrifying, handsome and repulsive. You had a stronger presence than anybody else in the room and it drew me in. You had a beard then and your hair was long and wavy. The lines around your eyes weren’t quite as hardened, your eyes not quite as cold. When you smiled, you made others smile instantly. You were dressed in that red chequered shirt I always loved and I could see the hard, heavy muscle beneath the flimsy fabric. Your hair needed cutting, but I suppose it always did. Tendrils of it fell onto you face as you joked and laughed with your friends and as you stopped to brush it away, your eyes fell onto mine.
And that’s when I knew.
I would drown in the deep blue pools of your eyes, submerse myself into their icy depths. I would follow you everywhere and anywhere. I was under the spell of your illusiveness, the anxious school girl with the crush on the bad boy, the sacrificial lamb to the strong, mountainous lion. As if on cue, you approached me. Did you know then, too? What would happen? Were each and every one of your careful, articulate steps that of a hunter, approaching a vulnerable pray without wanting to startle it?
You introduced yourself. Things went quickly from there.
You would begin introduce me to friends as your girlfriend, kiss me goodbye, hold my hand as we walked down the street. Some distant part of me – not quite fooled by your guises- warned me that things were going too fast. We moved from one milestone to another, turning a process of weeks and months into days and hours. My mum warned me, too. Not just to slow down, but to stop. She urged me to believe that you weren’t right for me, that you belonged to the wrong crowd, the kind she’d always forced me to stay away from. She saw you for what you were; an aggressive, brutish thug. She was different to me, whilst I was gullible, she was practical, realistic. She was not fooled by the allegedly tender kisses, the lustful way you looked at me. She was never fooled at all – not for one, single second. Reading this, you should be nervous.  It means she’s onto you. It means that she will let everyone know what you are and what you did. Even when I die, my story will not. I hope that frightens you.
We moved in together after three months. Our house was a mess. The wallpaper was ancient, stained with years of smoke from the previous occupant and peeling in the corners, the floorboards were uncovered and creaked at every step. It was set in a near permanent chill, the kind that crept underneath your skin and stayed there, leaving your hairs on end. The place was filled with a dismal, melancholic atmosphere that smothered me from the moment we moved in.

Our problems started on the first night. I burnt the dinner in the oven and you responded with the gift of an ugly, purplish bruise around my eye. You were drunk, you weren’t thinking straight. You weren’t acting like you usually do – I allowed these excuses to consume me. I believed that it was a one-time thing, a momentary lapse of character. You’d never been violent before and so I told myself I had no reason to believe you’d do it again. After all, this was my fault. Right?
That became my mantra. That it was my fault. Any action you took against me was a result of my own foolish misdoings. I was so blinded by my infatuation for you that I couldn’t see the danger that lived in front of me- a ticking time bomb of aggression and fury. The monster inside of you would break out from the chains of your rationality more and more frequently as time progressed; slap upon slap, punch upon punch. And I took it all. Accepted it as though I should expect nothing more. I began to notice subtle indicators prior to your onslaughts, the sudden abruptness in your voice, a slight twitch of your brow, the light draining from your eyes. The eyes I had once loved – the eyes that had once looked like glistening seas were now bottomless pools of endless darkness. Your face was no longer that of a handsome prince but rather a ruthless tormenter. I hated you. And I loved you.
After six months, something changed. I realised that I was expecting. I fretted for hours over telling you, unsure as to what your reaction would be. Anger? Excitement? Joy? I thought of you more than I thought of the baby. You were the one I had to focus on. But my tentative announcement proved my worries unfounded; you were overjoyed. Apparently you had always wanted to be a father, though I had never pinned you as the type. I couldn’t associate this violent ill-tempered man with the loving, caring and sincere images of my own father.  You promised to step up to the mark. A week later, I had a ring on my finger. But it felt like a chain, a manacle. An anchor that held me deeper in the prison of your eyes, of my desperate desire for you. I tried to force myself to be happy, focusing all my energy into the baby- into the beautiful being that was so quietly springing to life inside of me. I dreamed of the patter of tiny footsteps against the wooden floor, the insistent crying that was sure to drive you crazy and the pure, innocent giggling that would make everything worth it. I dreamed of us as a family, a unit. I concocted a perfect future in my mind. The storybook tale that every little girl dreams of. We were going to have it.
Despite this, doubt and worry flourished in my mind, I worried that your anger could be catastrophic if directed at a child. That the bruises that lined my papery skin would harm the angelic being. I wanted to keep the baby, my idiotic ideas of a perfect family as far away from you as possible. I wanted to keep them safe.
And I failed that.
I don’t remember what I did to piss you off, but it was probably my fault, right?. The abrupt, swift punch into the stomach was all it took. You had sent your message. And I had lost my baby. It wasn’t our baby anymore, it was mine. It became just another of the things you had stolen from me, my happiness, my freedom, my spirit, my future. I could feel everything I ever was drain from me, turn to vapour in the air. I had lost myself in pursuit of the devil. I was nothing anymore.

Until today.

Today I decide to claim my life back, to make a decision that will permanently separate us both. For I know where I am going, you shall never be invited. I pray that I will find my baby there and that we will live together and have the life that I had always dreamed of. Do not kid yourself into thinking that what I am doing is out of cowardice or anxiety – but note that I walk towards my end with a sense of euphoria. I have found the key from the prison cell, I have made my escape. I will be free from you again – free from everything.
I suppose you are wondering why I wrote this letter. And the answer isn’t simple, even for me. I wanted you to hear our story through my eyes. I wanted for you to look in the mirror and see the monster you have become. I want you to look at yourself, spend every minute of the night wracked with guilt and know that you killed me.  Not directly of course. But day by day you tore away at my soul and my being until there is nothing left. For what follows, you have only yourself to blame.
And I hope you remember that.