As the most prominent figure of my tale, I felt that you deserved your own letter displaying my thoughts. You, and you alone, are the single most obvious reason as to why I'm the way I am today.
From the very beginning, you were a 'bad idea'. But as you know, I was younger and much more foolish back then. I was besotted with you before I even knew you, much to the displeasure of my family and friends.They could easily see through the facade I could not. I was so taken by the paleness of your blue eyes and the charming demeanor that reeled me in so swiftly.
You were much older than myself, the kind of age-gap that provoked raised eyebrows and muttered gossip. The flecks of grey hair in your beard and the crinkles of crow's feet at the corners of your eyes proved as adequate evidence of that. But your smile was contagious, your laugh gruff and masculine to accompany your strapping build and tall height. You were the sort of fellow to act carefree and playful, the looseness of your morals and the excessive winking fueled my reveries every time you strode onto my father's farm - your presence ladened with expectation for cow hide.
I remember your roguishness at the start, always wandering by yourself, but willing to try your hand at helping someone else. I wanted you to notice me, I wanted my young age to be put aside because you were so worthy of attention. My friends would snort and disagree, But when you finally looked back at me after I had stared for so long, I grew numb with the anticipation of my next breath. Your eyes were paler than ever, icy even, yet they smiled just as your lips did - producing a kindling of warmth that cushioned any doubt prodding my mind.
From my narrow point of view, you were perfect. You were the person I had been waiting for - even after the rejection of my father's blessing. We courted for the short months that followed, amongst my occasional sellsword work and drinking down at the local, you were protective. If not overly. Yours were the only eyes allowed, you were keen on wrapping your arm around me, at any given chance, to emphasise that I was yours and no one else's. Brushing your hand across my cheek, tucking that pesky lock behind my ear, you were the only one allowed to be this close.
You were the only one I could love. Because you wanted it that way.
After meeting you, my friends and family became a distant memory. You were eager to cut off my contact with them, your excuse being that 'I was yours now,' and that 'nobody was ever going to change that'. Doe-eyed, I agreed. I nodded thoroughly because I was in love with you. You were unique to me, much like the half-moon creases underneath your eyes. I had given you my body, my mind and my heart.
Only for you to bruise all of them.
You married me to seal the deal. To make it official that I was legally yours, and yours alone. I was your wife and I didn't work the sellsword trade anymore. You made sure that I was almost always at home and when I was not, you accompanied me to the market for the weekly stock of fresh goods. Amidst the stalls, a basket swinging in the crook of my arm, my face glowing, you watched me closely - your paranoia peaking at the way I shared a subtle joke with the lad selling me apples. Eye twitching and fists balled, you initiated the scuffle and specifically the punch thrown at the lad in question. I yelled at you in front of the accumulating crowd, yet you ordered me to return home. That night was not the first time you had hit me. And I let you do it willingly. The collision of your palm against my cheek, which would later be pressed to the cool tiles of the house as I lay strewn across the floor. I thought I deserved it. I loved you, and I wanted to prove that I was no simple harlot. I was your wife. And it was my duty to be only yours.
The occurrence of your rage-induced advances grew more frequent. The charm I had fallen in love was becoming duller, you were no longer roguish or sarcastically kind. You were sharp-tongued and unrelenting, the beard had become a scruffier mess of greying black hair and your eyes had darkened considerably. I concealed my regret in the confines of a whiskey bottle, hidden in the tight cotton of my pillow for safe-keeping. But there were always times you'd punish me for smelling it on my breath. The expression of your attacks only exemplified your dominance, your power over me. My spine throw to the wall, your hand clamped around my mouth. My tears pooling into the gaps between your fingers, the way you bared your teeth at me like an angry hound. Your gaze was terrifying, your fingers digging into the softness of my skin, only to later create fingertip bruises that would raise questions, courtesy of suspicious neighbours. Though I couldn't blame them, your shouting and my cries of anguish were enough to raise alarm. The smashing of plates, the tinkles of broken glass, the shuffled movement of footsteps were all enough to enhance the suspicion.
I truly believed that the arrival of our daughter would stem your violent ways, that you'd see sense in not inflicting any more physical and emotional pain upon the mother of your child. But this only made you sickeningly jealous. The cries of a newborn babe in the small hours of the morn, the way you'd yell into your pillow and let me deal with it. You'd observe me over breakfast, irked by the way I didn't kiss you good morning anymore because I was too preoccupied with feeding our daughter. Slamming your fist down, cutlery surging away from your hand and frightening me into receiving your attention.Our daughter would burst into tears frequently in your presence, and you had eventually decided that you couldn't take it anymore.
It only took me a matter of three or four seconds to realise that our daughter had disappeared barely months after she had turned a single year. Dropping the hamper of clean washing, I remember charging from the house in a frenzied panic, only to meet you in the front garden, handing our daughter over to an official, peaky-looking woman. I bellowed for my child, the stare from over your shoulder silencing my voice, making me swallow the harsh lump in my throat. I couldn't return to the market after you took her away from me. The hushed whispers of 'alcoholic' slipped from the mouths of plump housewives, throwing me idle looks of malice as they shopped amongst themselves. Eyes burning into the back of my skull, skin hot and clammy. You insisted that the gossip would eventually stop, you told me that you needed to call me such things because our daughter was no good for either of us. You swore that our daughter would be safe elsewhere and all that mattered was that we were together again. That we could rekindle our romance.
The fact that we didn't was my only soft landing. For you see, I knew of your own vices and avarice. I knew of the coin you gambled because you were addicted to the mystery, the thrill, the 'what if'. So during a single evening of our fifth year of marriage, whilst I was preparing your preferred dish, when your long-awaited arrival did not come. I took to no suspicion, but I smiled as I chopped the entirety of the carrots saved from the previous eve. I even laughed a little, I laughed at the fact that you never showed up. When you almost always did. I was still laughing when I pressed a kiss to our daughter's cot and then tucked myself into our bed. I turned over and chuckled some more, because I knew that your own addictions would be the death of you.
Whatever debt had resulted in your timely death was my only salvation from your unending possession over me. The traces of my love for you still resonated, despite the way I smirked as they dumped your body in the ravine outside of the town, dressed all in black with netting over my weary eyes. The imprint of the man I had fallen in love was merely a ghost of the one that had been laid to rest in front of me. Because despite your obsessiveness, your hostility, your jealousy and your malice - you were still my first and truest love.
And for that I want to thank you. As without a hand on my throat, or pulling at my hair, or throwing me to the ground - my resilience would not be as strong.
And I would not have mothered such a beautiful child.
