A ruthless man

She told me stories about all the man she dated before she met her husband. One night when we were drunk and sharing secrets, she shared a story of one such man. A man who was ruthless, cold, selfish but enigmatic. Man, with beautiful words but a heartbreaker. She told me how this man would write poems for her and sweep her off her feet with his sensuous sense of humour. How he would make her heart beat faster and make her feel things that are too sinful to even talk about. She was crazy about him. Not in love though. But obsessed and crazy. He’ll make her dream and tell her how she is the centre of his world. He’d tell her his darkest dreams and secrets he claimed he never shared with anyone else. She longed for him. Day and Night. But he was like a rainbow to her, as she told me. She could adore him, dream about him even fantasize about him but never able touch him. But this man had a fragile ego and toxic arrogance. So, one day, he left her. Sulking, broken and appalled. It took her months to accept that he was really gone. And so, she started getting back to her normal life. Except one day, when he came back, only to destroy her more. I wondered, what made her accept him again after what he had done to her. But she smiled and said, it was the comfort and the familiarity. But I knew…it was his words. And since then, he kept leaving and coming back until one day when he told her he loved her. But as fragile as his ego was and as ruthless a person he was, he left again. This time, she couldn’t sleep for days….couldn’t stop her tears. This time she hated him but longed for him even more. This time her heart ached like never before and her mind couldn’t stop thinking about his voice, his words. This time, she was lost and hoped that he comes back. But deep inside her heart, she knew, this was the last time. He is never coming back again.

When I think about it, about all those poems and those words he wrote for her, were they actually for her? How many women is his life must be smiling with the thought that those words are meant for only them? How many hearts he must have broken? How void that person would be to have left so many times without even saying goodbye? And how cold his heart must have been to break one heart so many times?