The Continuing Downward Spiral of Sarah - Bob's Epiphany

Bob's Epiphany

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Bob had loved Sarah so much he thought sometimes that his chest would split open. He had come to yearn for her. All he wanted was to see her once in a day and that would be enough to get him through until the end. He had cherished her. He would have done anything for her and he’d thought there was some unspoken connection. But there wasn’t. He had deluded himself and she had fed it. Sadistically? Who knows?

Now he pondered the reality with the scourge of 20/20 hindsight. Sarah was no different than the men who had ruined her. He began to recall that she had never really done anything but lead him on and cut him down, sniping little comments that he had overlooked and shouldn’t have, juxtaposed with innuendo and unnecessary touching. She surely talked badly about him behind his back as she smiled to his face, as she did to many people. Her friendship was an act. It was an act with most people she knew. She was spoiled, but she hid it behind false caring. She was obsessed with people’s superficial status and that’s all that mattered to her and would ever matter to her. A person’s true character didn’t really matter. It was all about appearances, even if that meant suffering at the hands of the next emotionally-stunted sociopath who would deign to marry her. She sought them out, or they found her, and she lied to herself about it.

What she had done to him had made him hate her, virulently, and act out in ways that cost him dearly. There had been no cause for it, no matter what she told herself. But now, as he reflected, what point was there in it? She wasn’t worth hating. She wasn’t worth anything. She didn’t value anything real. She hadn’t achieved anything on her own, but through marriage. And, yet, she thought she could judge a person’s value by their bank account and social status. What she judged to be maturity and manliness was childishness and sociopathy. It was a pathetic existence, lived by far too many people in this shallow society, and she embraced it wholly. It’s what led her to her current sham of a relationship. There was no point in expending the energy on her. She would ruin herself. She’d trained herself to ignore the red flags, no matter how blatant they were, and she’d also learned to project them onto people who didn’t merit them if she deemed those people unworthy of her attention, like Bob.

But, in one way or another, he felt she should still have to answer for what she’d done, as no one, NO ONE, had required her to. Even if she’d heeded the self-interested advice of her “friend,” who had taken advantage of her emotional state, as hyperbolic as it was, and would use it to manipulate her into his bed, and, later continue to use it to control her, it’s what she deserved. It’s what she asked for. If she was okay with demeaning herself in the bed of a slimewad old man who’d taken advantage of her, that was on her. She was the one who would have to live with it and no amount of social status or money would make her any less depraved for it. She had lied. She hadn’t lied a little bit. She lied a lot and she should have to answer for it, even if it meant ruining her, even if it meant pushing her forever into the arms of, yet another, manipulative bastard who would, eventually, damage her beyond repair, so she could pretend she was really wanted. She’d chosen that herself and wouldn’t ever let herself see it. It wasn’t Bob’s problem. Her whole world was a self-deluded lie.

He’d given her every opportunity, and she’d acted as if she were pure and innocent. She’d acted as if she had done nothing and continued to act that way. She acted with such impunity and sought to do such extensive damage to Bob when she was guilty, that she had earned her fate. She deserved to be lied to and used, and it’s what she wanted anyway. She had earned whatever might happen and she had earned a fake, shallow relationship with a man who couldn’t hide his sociopathy if his life depended upon it. It oozed from him. His very profession demanded it, demanded a manipulative rat. But she was blind to it, and it was her own damn fault.

All Bob had done was love her and she had, for no reason whatsoever, created the melodramatic novella that had, finally, brought Bob down to her level. She owed Bob an apology he would never get. Bob hoped she would marry that manipulator, whose diapers she’d soon be changing and dentures she’d find in the bathroom sink, …and be miserable. And he didn’t care if that was mean. She was mean inside. And she deserved it.