Page 92 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
It wasn’t fate; he’s a stalker.
I tell myself that, over and over again because I know it’s what I should think. Because I know that I need to be looking at this for what it is. Any therapist would tell me that it was dangerous. That he’s dangerous. He’s a criminal. As much as I was able to understand about his… His family business… He’s the Romanian Mafia.
And our entire marriage is a contrivance that he created.
I tell myself that, and I wait for it to… To matter.
I wait for him to be something other than Dragos to me.
We have never had it sweet; we never had it romantic.
But against my will I remember Paris, and him washing my hair. I’m lying to myself. We have had it romantic.
There has been sweetness.
It’s been forgotten these last couple of years, but it was there.
But he was… Lying.
I take a deep breath; at least I tried.
I don’t know what to do. I can leave him. I realize that. He’s given me… Not permission, but his word that he’ll allow it if it’s what I need. But is it what I want?
I don’t know where this leaves us. I don’t know what marriage vows mean when you discover that everything about your relationship is a lie.
But I can’t hide from him. This is the business of us, and we have to work through it. I tried before. He didn’t allow it. But he’s different now. He’s told me that he loves me, and in all the years of our marriage he never did that. Now he has his memories. His memories and this time that we shared here.
Maybe I can try to talk to him again. Maybe it will be different.
He hid things from me, but I’m not blindsided by that. I knew he was.
I overlooked everything I didn’t want to see. I went willingly. People might look at him and see a monster, someone controlling. I told myself he was, but didn’t I walk into his house? Didn’t I stay out of my own free will? I wanted him, and I looked at him and saw a man could never be called normal and I went anyway.
I did what I knew he wanted because I wanted to please him, not because he forced me.
He never once forced me to do anything. He didn’t manipulate me. He never harmed me, never threatened me.
I built my own cell, brick by brick, out of my fear. My fear that if I knew everything about him I’d feel obligated to leave. My fear that if I asked how he felt about me he’d say he didn’t love me, and I’d have no more excuses.
I gave everything up for him, because I chose to. Then when I missed those pieces of myself, I left him because I have never figured out how to be…balanced. How to love art and have a life, how to love him and maintain friendships and do my art. How to leave him and…live. I was still in the attic, even then. Painting and painting because I’m not any more balanced than he is.
I don’t have the excuse of a tortured childhood. Just my own mind. My own passions that own me, control me.
In him, I’ve found a match in so many ways. A man who gets off on my passion. A man who can meet me there, but I have to learn to master myself. It’s not enough to just ask him to master me, and I know that.
I wait until I’m done shaking. Until I have a little bit more control over my breathing. I stand up and I open the door. There he is, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall with one knee drawn up, and one leg out straight. He looks despondent.
Like I’ve never seen him.
“We need to talk. Not just about things youwantto talk about. But the things I feel like I need to know.”
“If that’s what you wish,” he says.
“It is. It’s what I need. I need to know how you saw our marriage. Did you feel like you were tricking me? Did you feel like I was your…thing? That’s how I used to think of myself. A piece of your collection.”
He shakes his head. “No. That has never been how I saw you. I was never laughing at you. I was never enjoying keeping secrets from you. I wanted to keep you safe. What I found with you was something separate to the life that I’d been raised to live.” He lets his head fall back against the wall.
I reach my hand out. “Come inside,” I say.
