I didn’t let them manipulate me because I let him manipulate me over and over again.
They still run through my head every day, the things he said to me. He said them so nonchalantly that I almost didn’t notice, until I felt the sting of their afterbite. He set up situations that would in hindsight seem to blatantly obvious that it wasn’t even crafty; I still remember the day he took me to meet a “friend” of his who just so happened to be bulimic. He left me with her all day while he went off to drop acid with her boyfriend. That night, after we had s*x, he looked down at me with this disapproving look on his face and said that at least he had the curviest girlfriend around. The second he fell asleep, I went to throw up. I swear he was smiling when I returned.
It wasn’t just that, of cour
