Injurious to health

There's a story I want to tell, but I am not sure how it ends. I am not exactly sure why I want to put it into words though, because it's a story of unspoken words, and therefore I am likely to fall short. But "they" say that saying things aloud heals faster than letting tears wash them away, and the idea is tempting. You know how people sometimes complicate their own lives - there is this girl I know, who does it, unfailingly, all the time. For as long as she knew love she'd loved one guy, but as soon as she got him in her life, she refused to believe that he loved her back, as opposed to some charitable affection, and drove him away lying to him she didn't love him at all. Ego, pride, sheer stupidity? Who knew?

Several years now she's spent in secret silent misery loving him more than ever, unable to truly look at a life beyond. Yet, a mere public mention of him, let alone a sight or a meeting, brings out a reaction that wouldn't betray anything but hate and disgust. I wonder who is the show for. Is it for him - whose hurt at her betrayal has been for all to see and suffer, but surely in all this years that has turned to indifference? Is it for the world, who frankly couldn't care less anymore - it is old gossip after all? Or just for herself. 

Once upon a time she used to be the closest of my friends, which is how I knew how deeply and passionately she'd always loved and desired him and how happy she was when they first got together. I had been more than a little jealous, I'd confess. Did the jealousy of mortal folk like us become the cast of evil eye on her life, and frankly, on her sanity? I don't know. I don't know what exactly happened. I haven't been privy to her feelings or her life even since; I suspect no one else is, either. But I know her well enough to understand the misery she's really in, the pain in her eyes and the facade she stubbornly puts up. More than once I've tried to break in, but never succeeded. To be honest, I gave up. It just felt like it wasn't worth me, or I wasn't worth it, whatever it was. And I moved away for some years. I was selfish. Isn't everyone? 

But I cannot stop thinking about it now. I saw her yesterday and it broke my heart. She couldn't have been worse. She lives alone, barely survives on what seems like a horrible job, and has no social life. And the way she looked at her, I was convinced he must have done something horrible to her, something so hard to get over it's destroyed her life. So I tried everything from provocation to empathy, anger to friendship, and all I got was tears. Silent tears. Something that told me that no matter how infinitely bad it looked already, it was only getting worse. 

But I want my friend back. Whole.

So I went to him and asked - what the hell had happened. And how could he do this to her. To my surprise he broke down, because he doesn't know either. In all this years, he hasn't known, and hasn't been able to get over constant hatred and rejection from her. He knew she once loved him, and  that incomplete knowledge made it impossible for him to successfully replace her in his life. He tried hard, but he couldn't give himself to another relationship, and it didn't last. He'd told himself to not ruin his life over someone who barely knew he existed, but couldn't stop. He knew he couldn't live like this, dangling in the middle, mentally neither here nor there. I don't know what made him open up to me - we'd never exactly been friends. Maybe it was hope he saw, in some convoluted way, in my initial accusatory words that betrayed how much she still suffered over him. 

All this is truly fucked up. Big mess.

So I am trying something different. Why? Because I cant bear the pain all this is causing me. Me, who's otherwise a non-player in this cruel game, and yet, anguished merely by witnessing some of the anguish. I am selfish about it, because I hope by trying to set something right, I might tempt Karma to forgive me for some of the wrongs I'd done in my own life. I can't find out more by asking, so I am taking a convoluted detour that might, if it goes well, end up in the two of them telling each other what they really feel, and what that means for the past and the future. I do believe in jinxes and evil eyes a lot more now though, so I won't tell you what it is. 

I don't know how this ends. That the pain is intense is proven by how it affects even me, who's just a bystander. I hope I leave it better rather than worse. Quite unlike my own life.

All these one-man women are ridiculously stupid. And injurious to their own health.