She hated it. Hated the way they forced smiles when she walked in, hated the way the air around her reeked of their contempt. She hated that she had been so blind before. Tossed pennies into wishing wells and cried herself to sleep while reminiscing. She never wanted this, but who was she to complain? She had just about everything someone like her could ever need (let alone want). That mantra played on repeat in her head, at first as solace, eventually salt in a wound. 

 

 She missed being naïve. She missed believing his pretty lies laced with promises of no judgment and openness. She wanted to hop on a night train and run away from their scorn and never look back. She knew they thought she was crazy, an absolute lunatic, dangerous, a pariah of sorts. She also knew that she could never change this, never be enough or even come close. They passed judgments like God himself had appointed them as his jury, all perfectly masked and pushed down with subtle stares and inchings away. Just about anyone could have seen the scrutiny they looked at her with, as though they were x-rays examining bones. 

 

 She couldn't help but resent him just a little bit. He who had wooed her with rose-tinted promises of happiness and lured her in with his lullabies. It wasn't really all his fault, even she knew that, but all the blame had fallen on her already, so what difference did it make? She spent her days and nights cooped up in that town. At first, playing the role of a court jester, trying so desperately to please them, to have them see her. Then she played the fool, and eventually, she became the evil hermit, the pariah. They said she was the craziest woman they had ever seen, with her metropolitan ways and contrarian nonsense. She knew they thought she was ruining him, tarnishing his once sparkling name. Their insults which once bounced off her had begun to pierce her skin like arrows, each one weakening her more than the last. She could try to patch herself up, pick up the pieces, but the arrows soon became guns and the insults became bullets, and her previous solaces became nothing more than little band-aids that could do nothing to soothe her. 

 

She should have known he would propose. Whether he was truly oblivious to the extent of her suffering and his causing of it, or if he was so desperate to appease her, or so selfish as to try and keep her, would remain an enigma. She suspected it was a mix of the three. No one wants to see the ugly in what they find beautiful. Perhaps he really did think that this is what she wanted. Or maybe he had morphed into the selfish monster she thought he was, maybe he had been that way all along, but she knew she should have known something. She loved him, she knew that much, but was that enough? Was that enough to put herself at his, and their, mercy? She knew that if she ran she would prove their point, that her shame would become their satisfaction, and her pain would be their pleasure. 

 

 

 She left, of course, what else was there to do? She knew she probably should have cut it off beforehand, and given them less reason to speak, but she couldn't find the words or the moment to do it. She knew as she said no and left him crestfallen, that the whole town would take up arms against her and build a fortress around him. She knew their scrutiny would increase tenfold, and their rumors would only become more bizarre, but she also knew she had to leave. His town, his family, and he himself, would remain evergreen, with their collective disdain dangling like ornaments off of each branch. 

 

 Of course, they still whispered, they still placed bets, still snickered and stared. She was certain that even he must have indulged in it once or twice. She cursed herself for ever letting it get this far, for ever letting herself get here, for placing herself at their mercy and begging to have an olive branch dangled in front of her face. That would remain nothing but a fantasy. Of course, she should have known that their preconceived notions about "her people" preceded her, preventing her from ever being seen, and casting her into exile. They called her names like kids at a playground and said she was crazy and a lunatic and really truly sick in the head. At some point, she would fade into nothing more than a footnote in their collective memory, a story to tell over dinner, something to laugh about, and then be grateful that that's over.