My whole life, I’ve had an appreciation for the ocean. Perhaps that’s too light a word. Love isn’t right either. I’ve been tied to it. There’s significance there. I’ve never known what exactly, but it’s part of me, despite being miles away. If I were to go back after so long, despite everything, it’d feel like home.

I’d visit often, but I never lived there. I’ve been to bays, capes, and islands. I’ve stayed days and nights on ships, and even walked their decks while dark storms made them toss and turn like restless children. My favorite, though, was every night I’d spend at my Great Aunt’s house. Her place was small and rested on the edge of a steep cliff overlooking the Pacific. Sometimes I’d sleep in her son’s old room, but what I remember most was camping outside.

That feeling was something else. Getting to rest outside in a tent, where it’s cool and the wind rustles the fabric softly. The sky, unmuddled by light pollution and clouds, was vast and bright. The sound of waves crashing up against the rocks lulled me to sleep.

The sea creatures at the aquarium fascinated me more than any land animal. I wanted to know anything about them I could, and I had an appreciation for every single one. My favorite field trip I ever took was to Morro Bay in second grade. It was so grey and foggy when I got there. Something magical about it stirred feelings inside me that little else ever does.

That magical feeling may very well have been the sea placing a curse on my heart. There’s no such thing, I know. Magic, fate, all that. It has to be fake. I’m certain. Though things, ridiculous things, but very real things happen to me every so often. When they do, that certainty is shaken. I’m about to tell you one such instance.

It began with Her.

I first saw Her when I was 19. Back then, I was filled with all the sense of awe and unease of looking over the edge of a boat into the open water. She lived in Morro Bay, a place I cared very much about. She’d reached out to me on a dating app, but we never matched until She gave it a shot on another app. She believed this was fate putting us together.

I was terrified at first. I’d been burned before, and I’d done some burning myself. Looking at Her, I kept telling myself the same wouldn’t happen, but I still refused to open up to her. She was insistent, like waves nipping at my ankles, begging me to stop staring and jump in.

I had to. What else did I have? No one else wanted me. Everyone scared me. How could I get burned here? The sea doesn’t burn, it holds you. What’s more, you can’t burn the sea. Nothing ever hurts the sea.

So I did it, I jumped right in. I told Her everything I’d bottled up. All the ways I felt I’d fucked up in my life, everything I was scared of saying to another human being, everything I hated about myself. I was surprised to find that nothing happened to me. I wasn’t hated, in fact She still loved me like She’d been saying She did. I was floating. All that was left was to swim, so I said just what She’d been wanting to hear since we met little more than a week prior.

“I love you too”

It took a while for us to meet in person. We planned to meet on my birthday and go to the aquarium together. That didn’t work out however. My Grandmother wasn’t long for this world, and I had to be with her when she left us. In the car on the way there, She kept telling me “This trip is too sudden. They don’t want you to meet me. They’re going to do something to you. I don’t trust this.”

The waves were beginning to push me around, but once I waited it out, they calmed down. She even comforted me in my time of need. Even when I fell ill after my Grandmother’s passing. The sea was gentle for those days. I’d grown used to having Her in my ear like the sounds I fell asleep to as a child. At this point, we were tied.

On my way back home, She made me ask my Mother about going to see Her, to which I was told no. Mother had driven to Nevada and back more than once in the span of a few months, and wanted a break from long distance driving. I relayed this to Her, but She wouldn’t have it. Waves were shaking me again, pushing me. Once again, She was angry, “She wants to keep us apart. I hate your mother. She must be made to feel guilty.” And the wave that shook me the most:

“I’m not sure how much longer I can stand to wait.”

I later cried and told Mother I hated it at home. The next day she left for work and didn’t come home at all until the day after. She was at a casino. Waves shook me yet again “You’re going to lose your house. She’ll gamble your money away. We have to move in together, and fast.”

After having been together for a few months, we met in person for the first time and spent two nights together at a hotel in another city. I believed it was magical at the time. I was happy to be loved. I was happy to have had a body to hold, even if it was cold inside. Sure, I’d been asked to do things I didn’t like, but this was love. Nothing else made me as happy as that. Nothing else hurt me as much either.

The ocean doesn’t care how much you struggle to stay afloat. It beats you down until you give up and sink. You don’t get to say no, you don’t get to say stop, you don’t get to leave. It envelops your body, invades your lungs, and drains you of all your heat. All the while dragging you deeper and deeper to the bottom, where the bodies reside. That’s where my body stayed.

Many bodies were down there. Most were strangers at first, but over time I’d grown to know them and bond with them. Some got pushed further away by the current however, and I never saw them again. Oddly enough, She was down there too. I must’ve been dragged down to be with Her. Like She said, it was fate. She too, would eventually drift further from me, no matter how much I desperately clawed to drag Her back to me.

I fell for someone else down there while she still gripped my heart at arm’s length. He was warm. He didn’t burn me, He refused to. He shared his warmth with me, and I with him. It’s how we survived down there.

I made it out eventually. That’s how I lived long enough to get this message out to you. It took someone else diving down and pulling me out, but I’m out. You spend too much time in water and you get wrinkles on your hands and feet. I spent over a year with her in my heart, and She left it pruned and dry. I was grateful to my Savior, but They did not share the same attachment to me as I did to Them. Leaving me back to where I was before drowning, burnt on dry land.

He made it out soon after I did, and once again shared His soft warmth with me like He did before. I don’t want to be selfish, I don’t want to take too much of this love. He’s scared of giving too much. He doesn’t want to burn me, and I don’t want to suffocate Him. I just hope we care about each other enough to keep each other safe and happy. For now, at least, we are happy.

As for Her, I never saw Her come out. I left the sea months ago. For all I know She’s still down there, dragging others down with Her just to live off of their warmth until they drown.

I choose this analogy because it’s easier to get it out this way. The truth of what happened is something I seldom want to think about. I wish it never happened. I wish I could forget. I was abused, manipulated, and eventually neglected for over a year. I was promised love, and got the illusion of it. The only comfort I had was that I got out before I moved in with Her.

I should have known. I should have left sooner. If anything happened, it was my fault for not speaking up and standing up for myself. If I had any sense of danger at all, I would’ve run for the hills before ever even getting on the boat.

But I was cursed, remember? This was fate wasn’t it? Nothing could’ve been done. After all, it happened when I was young. Too young to even have recognized a curse. That’s the only explanation.

Except, magic isn’t real. Curses don’t exist. Least of all fate.

No, it began when I first saw the ocean. It began when I kept being taken to see it. It began by my Mother and Grandparents. It began when the first person saw the ocean and told everyone it was beautiful, but only beautiful. The lies and dangerous half-truths they spun about it.

The curse is only what we teach our children about love. The curse is in how we teach our children to desire it. The curse is not knowing what it really is and being unable to demonstrate it. The curse is suffering at the hands of another and passing it along to the next person.

We can break the curse simply by learning what it is. It’s not a true curse, it’s only ignorance. Not naivete, not weakness, nor hopefulness. Just ignorance.

Myself and the Man with whom I share warmth, we’re living proof. There are others like us as well. While not everyone gets into an abusive relationship, not everyone survives one either. I hope to take what I’ve experienced and use it to prevent future survivors from becoming victims. Maybe I can even help prevent people from going through it altogether. I have to. Because if I don’t, and fate isn’t real…

Why would something like that happen to me?