Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“Definitely sounds like him,” I say. Donovan was a romantic for sure. I lost track of how many times I’d briefly mention a play or opera or band or movie or a new restaurant I wanted to try and he’d surprise me with tickets or reservations. He picked up on every nuance, and he always made me feel heard. It always seemed like he was one step ahead of me at every turn, but always in a good way.
Berlin gathers a hard breath, her expression growing somber. “My freshman year of college—his junior year—is when he started to change . . .”
“In what ways?”
“He was hot and cold. Some days he was the old Donovan, loving on me and being his sweet self. Other days he would be quiet and distant, and if I tried to ask him what was wrong, he would tell me I was making drama out of nothing. After a bit, he became hypercritical of my appearance—for instance, we were at breakfast one day, and out of the blue he told me gray eye shadow made me look tired. And another time he told me my head looked weird when I wore a ponytail.” She tucks her chin. “I know it sounds silly, and it’s such a small thing to fixate on, but I still can’t bring myself to wear a ponytail without thinking about that comment.”
“Ugh,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”
I’ve never wanted to hit a corpse more than I do in this moment.
“I’ll never forget when we had dinner with a few friends from his dorm floor. We were laughing and having a great time—or so I thought. When it was over, he drove me back to my apartment and told me I embarrassed him.” Her eyes turn glassy. “I was so confused because I thought we had fun, and he refused to elaborate. He just said he was tired and wanted to go sleep in his own bed. It wasn’t long after that he started flirting with other girls in front of me. We’d be somewhere, and he would run into someone from his econ class, and he’d chat her up with a big smile on his face while I stood back, invisible.”
I haven’t touched my cappuccino in minutes, but I can’t peel my attention off her story for one second.
“We broke up a few times,” she says. “He’d always cast me out and reel me right back in. After a while I figured out that he only wanted me when he couldn’t have me.” A shiver runs through her, as if a decade’s worth of raw emotions is clawing its way out. “It was hard, you know? Because you always love your first love in some capacity, even if they were an asshole. No matter how toxic they were, there’s a part of them that’ll always have their meat hooks in your heart.”
“I’m so sorry, Berlin.” I place my hand over hers. “Young love is complicated.”
Not to make excuses for Donovan.
“What was the final straw?” I ask.
She slumps. “I was exhausted from his antics and just wanted off the damn roller coaster. He tried like hell to get me back—using all of his charm and all of his tricks and saying all of the things that always worked before. It drove him mad that I wouldn’t cave that time, but I did what I had to do. Eventually he moved on, and so did I.”
Berlin covers her face.
“Oh my God. I’m so embarrassed,” she says. “You asked what he was like, and I gave you an entire saga worth of history. Completely did not intend for that to become a vent session, by the way.”
“No worries,” I say. “I find it fascinating, actually.”
“Anyway, people change, and I’m sure he was a lovely person when you were with him.” She takes a sip of her tea and perks up, the melancholy instantly gone.
“The way you described him in the beginning,” I say, “reminds me of this guy one of my friends dated years ago. He love bombed her hard for the first year or so; then one day it was like he flipped a switch, and he started doing the things you said Donovan did to you . . . being controlling and hot and cold, gaslighting her, flirting with other women. It turns out he had narcissistic personality disorder.”
She peers to the side before nodding. “I’ve never considered that before.”
I held my friend’s hand through that breakup and sat by her as we googled the hell out of NPD and gleaned everything we possibly could to understand the bizarre span of their toxic relationship. It turns out narcissists have a pattern. They’re almost always charming and attractive, they tend to go for people with sweet, trusting personalities who are easily moldable, they bomb them with love and affection greater than any they’ve ever experienced, and when they feel they’re about to lose control, their alter ego comes out. Cheating, verbal abuse, and emotional manipulation are their weapons of choice. The ironic part is they’re incapable of loving someone because they don’t love themselves. Their romantic partners are only there to fill their needs, nothing more or less.