Ruined by Scott Hildreth Page A

consumed me. He has crawled inside of me and become part of me, part of my day-to-day life. Even when he is not in my presence, he is part of everything that I do. He is in my mind. He has infected me.
    I paint my nails and I hope. I hope that he praises me. I hope that he smiles. I hope that when he says what he says, whatever it may be, that he ends it with those two words. Baby girl.
    I am ruined.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    ERIK. Broken People . I had completed the book, and immediately read it again. The parts about codependency and today’s youth were spot-on. I had never, however, looked at people as broken , only different. We are all different. Looking at humanity as broken was a different approach, and the attraction of broken people to broken people of a similar likeness was ingenious.
    Something in me clicked when I read it, like the flip of a switch. All my education, intelligence, people skills, training, understanding, experience, and knowledge were tossed aside. I sat, with an empty mind, and absorbed what I had read. One other part of the book made me think. It was a more difficult part to come to terms with, but an easy part to comprehend and understand.
    “Marc, you don’t give someone your love. They take it. Love is taken. And, when someone takes your love, you will know it. Do you understand?” she asked. I did not understand. I nodded. She smiled. We had this discussion often. The taking of love. Last year, she placed her hand on my shoulder. She said nothing. I looked in her eyes. I was seventeen. “Yes,” I said. “Yes what, Marc,” she responded. “Yes, I understand,” I smiled. We embraced. She smiled. It was summer. My mother. My best friend. “Yes, mother, I understand,” I said again. She smiled. Again.
    The taking of love. It made sense. We have little, if any, control over what we feel. And, according to the book, there is no wrong way to feel. I believe that. I have always believed that. How do we know when someone takes our love? I thought. I wondered. I tried to recall every woman I had ever encountered and spent any time with. I tried to decide if I had ever actually loved one of them. I decided, quickly, that I had not.
    Someone cannot take, easily, what is protected from their grasp. The taking of love--or the taking of one’s heart--could be easy, I supposed, from someone that had minimal effort in place to protect it. Someone that had erected walls to protect their heart from being taken would be less subject to the theft.
    Theft.
    The act or an instance of stealing; larceny.
    I decided as I sat and thought, after the first time I read the book, that I had erected walls to protect what I felt was in need of protection; my heart. Not because I was afraid of theft, afraid of it being taken, or afraid of love - protected because I don’t like feeling pain. Pain from the loss of what it is that we love.
    If we don’t love, we don’t feel pain. If we don’t have expectations, we never have disappointment if the expectations aren’t met. My heart was protected to protect me. Like a gladiator’s armor protecting his heart from the lance of his opponent.
    It would take a gladiator with a cunning nature, keen skills, considerable strength, ability, diversity, and endurance to have an opportunity to take my heart. To take my love. After I read the book a second time, I felt vulnerable. I felt unprotected. I felt changed. And that change, for me, was uncomfortable in many ways. My armor set aside, I was exposed to the threat of my opponent’s advances.
    To believe that, after 36 years of living, a simple book, written by a simple man, could change me. The thought was unnerving. Time passes and things change, yet another quote from the book. Change is as inevitable as the tide. I sat on the edge of my weight bench and thought.
    I contemplated lifting weights, as if the strength gained from the workout would provide protection. I felt like a soldier in combat,