Happy Halloween

And by "Happy Halloween" I mean "another holiday ruined by addiction". 

It's technically past Halloween depending on where you live, but I've been thinking about this for days. In that abstract, unconscious sort of way. And since I can't sleep since the pinpoint pupils made their comeback, I figure writing is as good as sitting here in the dark staring at the fire. 

I met Roi a month before Halloween and when the holiday rolled around we had a swanky party to go to and I dressed up in a hot, but not trampy, outfit and we drove off into the dark. I was full of awe at the way I was feeling with this new relationship. Giddy and reckless with budding love. 

And I loved Halloween. It was possibly my favorite holiday. Christmas and Thanksgiving are great, but there's always family drama. Halloween was awesome-sauce on steroids. Fun for kids, fun for adults, exploding with creativity, and full of irony. So I was busting with excitement over this party, hosted at an amazing house with turrets and nooks and statues. A house built by a hippy collective, full of odd-ball enchantment. Just made for Halloween.

Roi was attentive at the party. Showing me around and introducing me to people, holding my hand as we walked through the crowds. Toward the end of the night we were standing together talking, and he took my face in his hands and kissed me. A woman made a bee-line for us from across the room and gushed, "I just had to tell you, that was the most romantic kiss I've ever witnessed". 

I blushed. 

The next three Halloween's were progressively horrifying. 

Halloween #2 Roi wore a costume on which he wrote his phone number and informed me as we were on our way that we should mingle separately. This was a sign of a "healthy couple". 

Halloween #3 we were on shaky ground after my recent discovery of a major SA acting out. I was still in shock. Didn't want to go with him, but didn't want him to go without me either. I felt like a rabbit who wasn't yet fully aware it had been skinned alive.

Halloween #4 a holiday I now associated with trauma and fucked upness, I went to the party against my better judgement but had made clear my boundaries. No matter, we lost sight of each other briefly and I walked into a room to find him leaning against a doorway with an attractive woman standing about a foot away looking up at him in that unmistakable way. Head tilted slightly down and to the side, looking up through eyelashes, looking away and smiling then quickly looking back. He feigned absolute innocence over the whole thing. When I got upset, he threatened me physically for the first and so far only time in our relationship, and said something so heinous and awful I've never had the strength to write it down anywhere.

This Halloween we went far away to visit a friend. No costumes, no parties, no decor. Nothing. I wanted to erase the whole bastardized, stinking, rotting, holiday from the calendar. Run as far away from it as I could.

I want my holiday back.