Monologue

“He was cruel and you loved him. But okay, okay, he wasn’t always cruel. Sometimes he was nice, and he was gentle and sweet and everything you ever wanted in a boy. Sometimes he bought you flowers and called you beautiful and he kissed your fingertips– – to make up for the times he pulled your hair and called you a mess and made you cry – sometimes he apologised with tears in his eyes and you believed him. Sometimes you chose to believe him. The first time he took you to meet his friends he said, “isn’t she a jewel?” And you felt your heart swell with pride and you wanted to kiss him right there and then like a smitten schoolgirl. So, later, when he called you an embarrassment, you felt your heart drop and your cheeks grow red and you thought you must have done something wrong. So afterwards when he wouldn’t talk to you and you began apologising for nothing it really got to your head. The problem was that he was cruel and he justified it by blaming his cruelty on you. “This is what you made me do,” he said, and the first few times you almost apologised for it. And he almost had you, didn’t he? A few more months and it would have ruined you. “So what made you leave in the end?” a friend asked the other day. You swallowed and said, “I imagined how I would feel if any man treated my daughter that way,” you started, “and I almost started to cry.””

“Elle s'était faite à l'idée. Elle avait compris qu'elle allait vivre avec cet amour enfoui au fond d'elle jusqu'à la fin de ces jours, qu'il ne cesserai jamais d'être là, quelque part, et que la seule façon de continuer sa vie c'était d'accepter de vivre avec. Elle s'était résignée. Elle avait lâché l'affaire, elle cherchait plus à comprendre et se contentait de vivre avec. Certains jours, elle avait même arrêté d'y penser.”

- On se retrouve où ?

I’m living in a body that fights to survive with a mind that tries to die.