18 parts Ongoing MatureA happy childhood, a so-so adolescence.
Then adulthood arrived, and everything went to hell.
And by everything, I mean it.
Grown-up life is truly a wonderful, dazzling adventure! A job that drains your soul, stripping away any will to live while fueling a more or less justified homicidal instinct; depression knocking at the door with a lovely bouquet of red roses; and, last but not least, the remnants of a social life buried somewhere under my shoes. Not the ones I'm wearing now; those are slippers, big difference. I mean the other ones. The ones in the cabinet that I haven't touched in five years.
Love can be destructive. It catches you, ensnares you, devours you, and if you're unlucky enough, it leaves you standing in nothing but your underwear before reducing you to ashes.
I had made peace with my "and she lived single, forever unhappy but safe" fate. A house, one, four, eight, maybe twenty cats-to meet expectations-and a future as flat as a heart monitor that's given up the ghost. No joys, minimal suffering, because there's only so much a heart can take before it calls it quits. And honestly? Fuck it, I'd been through enough.
... But he changed everything. In the worst, most terrifying way possible.
From this abyss, I may never climb back out.
