The moment he started beating about the bush, using too many words than needed, I immediately perceived his search for an acceptable way to say, "It is not you, it is me." The lineage Adam procreated? Despicable and promiscuous! But alas, he found his landing: "Mars, my dear, do you not think you deserve some kind of chance at tender affection? the ilk that will set your spirit free as you have always dreamt about, do you not?" he near whispered. One would think he was rehearsing for a theatric role as a lover in a toxic affair. After carefully scrutinizing his words, I burst out laughing hysterically because this discolored suburban man must be convinced he is making a fool of me. "Like I have always dreamed about"? So you do recall my fantasies but still built the nerve to vomit your venom in them? Because how else could you be so comfortable hurting me knowingly and secretly for all these years? Four long years!

Was it not you who spent weeks convincing me to take that fetish love and commitment oath with you in the first year of tying the knot? I am struggling, trying to come to terms with the knowledge of you making me feel undeserving of you for not yielding—like I was dubious...a sinful spouse. That should have been my cue to take flight but no, I even started to read into your nonsense. I was too afraid to admit the loopholes, foolishly waiting on you to cleanse yourself of all that dirt—that paranoia, but who knows, I might have been the delusional and blind one, the only half desperately in love. You are selfish Jimmy, the most self-centered person I have had to cross paths with on this beautiful earth. I do not know why it took so long for me to realize that this was yet another man lusting after me—you hid it so perfectly, confessing your love for me more times than our Butter barked in a day, but there was no atom of love in this, not from your end, not then, not now. For God's sake, I was innocent Jimmy, you should have just rejected me and shut down my advances before they even clamped up, I would have snapped out of it a long time ago, but instead, you chose to indulge me while you gave your heart to someone else.

Now you suddenly think I should swallow the hurt and allow you to exit my life in "peace"? You are handing out suggestions now? After soaking up my oxygen for forty-eight whole months? How convenient. Jimmy, you would leave, but in pieces, both you and that beast that posed as our third wheel—a third wheel screwing out the wheels that held my matrimonial home in place. When I first met you both at the conference, claiming to be colleagues, I should have picked up my investigative senses right there—saved myself from this looming ache—this unfortunate love triangle. Now I am here, constrained in the middle of a love-nest turned lake, drowning and fighting for air. Do I even possess the willpower to move a limb? This situation is a joke and that is the only explanation possible.

Maybe I mentally drained you like you claim, but the universe bears witness that I tried to fix it—spending more time at home so I could cater to you instead of my farm, my credit card swiped at therapy sessions, wiped at the IVF clinic even after I had continually begged you to consider adoption. All of this, only for you to announce you are in love with another woman and want a divorce from me, your Mars? Oh, until I found out she was with child—my husband's firstborn. Was that what this was about? An offspring? It seems very unlikely seeing that she never wanted children or was that said in empathy since I could not have one of my own? Alex? Introducing me to everyone as her "best friend" only to turn around and become a bone in my throat aiming to seize the good life I thought I had.

Pretense is not an art my soul is familiar with, so there will be no "warm and peaceful" goodbyes per request. I do not align with closure, but if I did, it would be to see you both suffer, to see your hearts in turmoil, your so-called love develop thorns and transcend into agony, for silent and unimaginable quakes to accompany every sob and smile alike, so at least you step foot on the field you set ablaze in my name.

I am all alone in this dark place I have been pushed to, with all these bare truths and heart-wrenching confessions I cannot seem to comprehend. When the day breaks and the rooster crows, I will surely find my way out of this hole and when that happens, I do not want to go on a quest for love like you wish, definitely not with a romantic partner—I have had my fill of your kind and that should suffice for a lifetime.