Currently listening to: Red (Taylor’s Version) – Taylor Swift
Touching him was like realizing all you ever wantedWas right there in front of youMemorizing him was as easy as knowing all the wordsTo your old favorite songFighting with him was like trying to solve a crosswordAnd realizing there’s no right answerRegretting him was like wishing you never found outThat love could be that strong
Have you ever been the villain in someone else’s story?
Prompt snagged from: TCMC
I think about that question often—especially when I reflect on my past relationships. I’m almost certain I was the antagonist in some of my exes’ narratives, especially Zaddy’s.
The truth is, we all experience people through the lens of our wounds, expectations, and timing. And sometimes, you’re cast as the villain not because you were cruel or careless, but simply because you didn’t show up the way they needed you to. Because you chose yourself. Because you stayed silent when they needed words. Because you held your heart a little too tightly behind locked doors.
I never meant to hurt him.
But intention doesn’t erase impact.
Zaddy wrote this letter below. It’s definitely not a love letter… not quite a goodbye either—but something in between. It sat in my inbox like a gaping open wound as a painful reminder.
Dear Rojie,
I have been thinking about our relationship. The things I do know: I like you very much. I feel an attraction to you. I do have honest feelings for you.
Things I also know: I don’t believe we have a future together.
I had hoped that the more time we spent together, you would be able to open up to me. Our conversations are mostly one sided, and I don’t feel I am getting to know you the way that I would like to. I am not even building a rapport with you.
When there were times we needed to discuss things that were important to fixing a situation, instead of an open dialogue, I got nothing in response. Later, the reason given was that you were “processing”.
I had hoped to show you a different world than you had. I wanted you to have a positive experience and grow as a person. At the very least, feel that you were cared for and that you were important. I was considering flying you to London/Paris with me to share with you a different and experienced point of view that maybe you had missed on your last visit. I sincerely wanted for your happiness.
Before I left for the holidays, I believed we were building something together. Then you went to Vegas for a week with another man. I was deeply affected by this, and didn’t understand how you could say that you wanted to be with me, then go off with someone else. I feel this decision alone doomed any hope for a future together with you.
In the end, I realize that we are too different. Although you said that change is slow, I am looking for someone that I can immediately share my experiences with and have an understanding. I don’t know if we will ever have that.
I don’t expect a response from you, because it is something I have grown used to not getting. I wish you well, and I will miss what could have been.
– Zaddy
Reading it now, I don’t feel defensive. I’m not angry. I see his pain in every line. I can hear the disappointment and ache of someone who wanted to love me but couldn’t find a way in.
Maybe I was the villain in his story. The one who kept her walls up. The one who chose freedom over commitment. The one who wouldn’t—or couldn’t—let herself be fully seen. But I wasn’t pretending. I showed up the only way I knew how. And it wasn’t enough for him.
He asked for emotional presence, transparency, connection. I wasn’t ready. Not because I didn’t care, but because vulnerability still felt like a language I hadn’t learned yet. I wanted to meet him where he stood, but my own fear kept me a few steps back.
He said that he wanted to show me a different kind of world. One filled with art, experience, and refinement. He wanted to take me to London and Paris, to explore the cities through his lens and maybe, just maybe, make me fall a little more in love with the idea of us. I think in his own way, he genuinely cared for me. He wanted to change me, fix me—or save me—from myself. But I never asked for a savior. It also made me question if I would ever be good enough for his highbrow self.
And still, even after that letter, we didn’t stop. Not really.
We kept circling each other, like gravity wouldn’t let us go.
We still saw each other.
We still had sex. Every chance we got.
We still exchanged soft looks, and sometimes sharp words.
We still reached for each other like it meant something.
We were like a moth and a flame—drawn to the heat, to the danger, to the inevitability of burning.
And the truth is, I still don’t know which one of us was the moth and which was the flame.
Maybe we took turns.
Maybe we both burned.
But even in those moments, I couldn’t quiet the questions whispering in my heart: Was he really single? There were signs that felt off, but I brushed them aside. Was I the only one in his orbit—or just one of many, the way he was one of many in mine?
I had been honest about seeing other people. He knew that. But the truth? Deep down, I didn’t feel like I was his only one either. And that uncertainty ate at me.
When the chance came to go to Vegas with Beau Mec, I took it.
To me, it was just a few days. A temporary escape.
To him, it was something else entirely.
He saw it as betrayal. As confirmation of everything he feared.
And maybe that was the moment everything quietly cracked.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care.
I did.
I wanted to pick him.
But I was scared—scared of being fully seen, flaws and all. Scared of being known by someone who didn’t miss a thing. He was sharp. Emotionally literate. Disarmingly perceptive. And that terrified me.
So instead, I picked the easy one.
Beau Mec was safe.
Predictable. Boring, if I’m honest.
He didn’t ask the hard questions.
He didn’t dig too deep.
He let me stay hidden.
And I needed that kind of invisibility at the time.
Zaddy wasn’t safe.
He saw too much.
And in my mind, that made him dangerous. Not in a harmful way. The kind that could break me open.
Whatever we were, we couldn’t truly let go. We kept coming back, a magnetism born of two people who didn’t know how to be whole, but couldn’t stay apart…
“Sometimes two people have to fall apart to realize how much they need to fall back into themselves,” – Unknown
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