I Don't Understand You and I'm Glad I Never Will

CW/TW: >!Mention of grooming and child-related offenses. (Hence the NSFW warning)!<

I'm never going to understand you and I'm glad I won't. This year, I turn 28. The same age you were when you decided a 17 year old girl at work was worth pursuing.

You were never mean. You were sweet, you were kind, and you convinced me I was the one for you and that we had a future. But that's how you operate, isn't it? It's a song and dance you've practiced over and over to convince girls that you're safe, that you are capable of loving them.

You already had a registered history of offenses against minors when we met. You'd given me a half-truth to explain it away in a way you knew I'd dismiss before anyone else said anything. My dad yelled at me and threw the papers with your court documents in my face when he found out.

You convinced me it was worth ditching my parents and my family to be with you. To support you and your misunderstood life. The night I graduated, I moved in with you.

The first year of our relationship, you found out you had a daughter. She was the cutest thing being raised by the most vindictive and cruel women I've ever met in my life to-date. You cheated on me with her to see if there was a greener pasture in investing in a possible life with your daughter in it. I didn't find out until years later near the end of our relationship.

I thought I was an adult. I had the full time job, I bought the house we moved into together, I helped you with your parole and your future custody case for your daughter. I busted my ass and was so lonely for it.

I'm pretty sure you cheated on me the entire time. There's no way you were doing so many odd jobs and just not bringing home enough money to help with bills.

But I thought you loved me. And even at 27, about to be the age I met you at a decade ago, I still fucking love you. I hate it. I want to rip my heart out of my chest and stomp on it until love isn't a concept for me to conceive of anymore.

You're in prison. Again. For something I disregarded as a circumstance that didn't happen, something that you painted as another off-chance accusation towards the end of our relationship. It supposedly happened before we met. But you're behind bars and I'm about to get married to a man my age who actually has his shit together.

His love is different. It's not the same and I hate myself for not feeling so intensely infatuated the way I did with you.

He deserves it.

You don't and never did.

As 28 gets closer, I look back and realize that if I put myself in your shoes, I would be disgusted with the thought process that convinced you it was okay to approach the 17 year old girl you'd been working with since she was 16 as a potential partner.

You gaslit me the last time we talked about it, but you DID take my virginity at 17. You were 28. You had convinced me it was a good idea to skip work and sneak back to your house while your parents weren't home to do what you wanted to do.

And you were so fucking nice and sweet the entire time. I thought you really loved me. I gave you everything.

I hate you so much. Even now, I know if I send you a letter in prison to talk to you about anything at all, these feelings are going to spill over and that's not fair to me, my partner, or your wife who's known you for less than a year and has fallen into the same promises and act.

At least she's your age.

So I won't be keeping the promise I made when we broke up. The one where I said that if things went South and you got locked up, I'd write to you even if it's just so you have someone to talk to.

I'm sure you have at least two or three other women you've convinced to do the same. And, if not, you deserve to be alone in the echo chamber with the wife you'll one day stab in the back. God knows there's a whole trail of women that are all in a group chat at this very moment feeling bad for her and angrily putting together timelines.

I was the youngest. I guess I scratched a certain itch for you and served my purpose giving you a place to live and turning a blind eye to your infidelity and potential crimes. You seem to have a habit of finding women to live with and use before you get caught and kicked out, always ready to move in with a backup you've already been screwing for months prior.

I wish I could put this in a letter and send it to you knowing you'd have to live with it in a cell with nothing else to think about, but I know you don't actually care. You never did. I'd just become another liar in your story that hurt you and gave you a reason to cry on someone else's shoulder.

Your daughter with that psychotic woman is about to be a teenager and she looks just like you. I keep tabs. I can't help it. And honestly, I hope you're never a part of her life. It seems like she's settled into whatever screwed up life her mother has given her and she doesn't need a predator father added to that. Even if she'll be graduated when you're out.

You're an awful person who thinks they're good and that's the worst kind of person to be.

You're dead to me. It's the only way I can cope.

Rot in Hell.