What can I say? Michael has ideas of me before I can acknowledge them myself. I question his motives. Does he place his demands because he loves me, or does he place them out of selfishness? Michael was to marry the version of me he likes best, a figment of his imagination. He is threatened my success will take away from his own. He wants to curb my freedom. Therefore, his proposal was not out of love; it was out of ego. My beauty is not something to be coveted; it is meant to be shared. My hands are tied.
Fear always challenges the heart, does it not? But I am more afraid of my potential being robbed than my security being lost. I have my own successes, my own dreams, my own passions, and most of them do not include Michael.
He is an extension of my existence, someone I can certainly live without. Seven years. How could I not have known?
The years pass into memory. He watches me go and I see him standing still. The truth reflects in my eyes like a mirror. It is undone.