But I'll never forgive or forget.

It physically takes the breath from my lungs. Cool air slowly releases, perhaps it's warm, but my mouth is hotter, like when you feel cold and you ask someone to feel you to prove it, but they are always colder.

It's not just my heart on which he pulls the strings, but my entire chest. My empty lungs stretch uncomfortably, my heart twangs, my ribcage creeks from the weight of his words.

He is dangerous. I think I knew it when I first met him, but young and foolish as I was I bit the bullet he shot at me, and I held on and for a while it was good. Nice. Fun. It was exciting. After so long the excitement died, and his harsh but witty humour became nothing but unnecesssary and hurtful. I was holding on to the bullet that I had clenched between my teeth, but the thrill of catching it was no longer there, only the fear of letting it go. There was nothing left for us, I knew it almost instantly, and he knew too.

Perhaps it was because I couldn't trust him as far as I could throw him. Or perhaps it was because I couldn't trust myself. Or perhaps it was just never going to work. I don't like to think that any of those were right, but it was true. I was young and he was nasty. What could I do but take a time out. Breathe. Live.

He did a horrible thing and he hurt me. To this day I don't know why I deserved it, from either of them. I did all I knew to do from the start. I was practically a child, I couldn't be blamed for the things I said. I couldn't be blamed for something that was out of my power.

I said things I meant. I'm not going to lie and say that it was the heat of the moment. I wished the worst kind of pain on him. I wished eternal darkness. I wished memories which will burn and sting everytime he remembered. In many ways I still wish the last upon him.

Many say that time is required to forgive and forget. That may be true, and while over time I forgot many details, I forgot most of the time in which our lives intertwined, I forgot his face and I forgot his history, forgive him I did not.

I was shocked in myself, the first time I contacted him. Why? I asked myself over and over. Why am I doing this? But nonetheless I pressed send and soon send turned into the small, round green phone and I heard his voice. It hadn't changed at all, it was still amazing, captivating. I expected to be repulsed and find an excuse to leave, but instead I was mesmerised, listening to him talk, for hours and hours and then for hours the next day, and everyday. It was probably then that I could feel myself falling. I wish I had the strength then to cut it off, to strangle our relations to within an inch of it's life. Instead I allowed myself to be swallowed whole by his silken accent. It blanketed me, warmed me, I could hardly even remember why I had been so mad at him.

Okay, so perhaps that is a lie. I remembered well, but what could I do? I was trapped, but I pretended to myself that I wasn't, that I was in charge. Like an alcoholic I told myself I could give him up if I wanted to, I just didn't want to.

And so I fell further and further, like Alice down the rabbit hole. I thought I'd fall forever, tumbling, reaching for an edge to hoist myself up on, but there was nothing, complete blackness but it was warm. Filled with feelings of artificial love that I had fooled myself into seeing. I could have fallen forever and never cared, but then I hit the ground. As I hit I must've smacked my head, and my heart because there he stood Friday 26th March 2010 and I fell back in love with the man that had filled me with a kind of anger that scared me only a few years before.