Love Bomb | Paige Randall Singer

Love Bomb

Paige Randall Singer

It started with a love bomb.

“I think you’re my soulmate,” he told her after their first kiss through a grin she did not yet see as sinister. They had met just two weeks prior in a psychiatric unit that they were both placed in for suicide attempts, and it was shortly after he was discharged that he hopped on a bus, with a ticket that she had paid for, to live with her a few states away. Completely on her own for the first time in her life after a nasty fallout with her family, she latched onto his words and allowed them to fill her being completely. She needed someone to fill the empty holes in her heart, because she did not feel as if she was capable of doing so by herself. There was no belief or trust in herself. Even her own family didn’t want her around, so what worth did she really have? She felt worthy when she was with him though. He told her everything she didn’t even know she needed to hear. “I’m going to take care of you.” “I’m so in love with you.” “I can’t wait to marry you one day.” All of her love for herself stemmed from his love for her. She had never felt more beautiful, more loved, or

more wanted. It was the two of them against the world, and she believed in the depths of her soul that he would protect her from any danger. However, what would she do when she realized the only danger in her life was him? First, he made her doubt her friends, the only people she felt she had left

after cutting ties with her family. “Why don’t your friends ever come over? They must not really care about you.” “When is the last time you even saw her? She’s not your friend.” Sly little sentences he used to chip away at years of friendship, to get her all to himself. This was just the first part of the manipulator’s master plan. When she was reunited with her family, he reminded her daily that they could (and would) drop her in a second. “They don’t love you,” he would tell her. “They aren’t your family. I am.” He wanted dominance over her heart. Every time they argued he would remind her that she was impossible to love. Her worst fears and beliefs thrown at her by the person who she thought she could trust. And when she began to make friends through her job, he felt like he was losing his hold on her. He would accuse her of cheating on him every time closing took longer at the restaurant. She had to forget hanging out with friends, because every time she would he would send her harassing text messages and phone calls. Worthless slut or whore were his go to nicknames in his accusations. However, he was allowed to hang out with his friends, and she was never allowed to come. She wasn’t allowed to know them. And when she called

him out on this, she was crazy. She became a prisoner in her own life – stuck in an apartment with her abuser, not allowed to leave without being harassed and degraded by her jail-keeper. He had no more love bombs to drop. He had her captured and there was no need to build her up anymore, to lie about who he was at his core. He lived and thrived off of tearing her down. When he got her pregnant, he had her exactly where he wanted her. Stuck. He didn’t know her strength though. He didn’t know she would do anything to crawl out of the jail he built around her. The abortion pill was her ticket out, and she took it. There was no guilt or hard decisions to make. There was only a choice – her life or this prison, and she chose to build a life all on her own. Free from him.

And that freedom felt better than any love bomb he ever dropped.

Maleficent

Keely Tindell