Day VII: Post Mr. E(nigma)

Picture this: me, half-drunk on cheap mortal wine, sprawled across a velvet chair like a fallen queen, declaring to the ceiling beams, “I am the Scarlet Letter.” Not a lover, not a partner, not even a goddess, just an ambulatory symbol of shame. A scarlet letter in red hair and smeared mascara. Somewhere in the distance, the gods are howling with laughter and honestly, I can’t blame them. If you can’t laugh at yourself, are you even immortal?

One of the cruelest things you ever did, and I still can’t decide if it was cruel or just unintentionally comedic, was tell me the truth. You didn’t just break my heart. No, you accessorized it with extra knives. You told me, as if I should feel comforted, that you would have made it work with all the other lovers. All of them. The ghosts who didn’t even want you. Apparently, I check every box on the cosmic partner list, and somehow I’m still the one you can’t stand to keep. That stings, sure, but it also feels like being told I lost a job interview because I was “too qualified.” Excuse me while I laugh into my wine glass.

And then came the pièce de résistance: the moral compass speech. You, noble knight of principles, explaining that the real reason you couldn’t stay is because I was your dishonor in the flesh. I was the living, breathing reminder of that time your actions didn’t align with your morals. Not a partner. Not a person. Just a guilt totem with red hair. Honestly, I should start charging rent for occupying that much space in your conscience.

Here’s where it gets deliciously ironic. You see, I literally have the duality of morality tattooed all over my body. Not metaphorically. Ink. Permanent. Every morning I wake up, look in the mirror, and get reminded that good people sometimes make bad choices and bad people sometimes make good ones. That’s the whole thesis statement of my skin. And you? You couldn’t stand it. You wanted clean lines, sparkling honor, no messy contradictions. Meanwhile, I practically marinate in paradox. It’s my essence. I was the safest person alive to screw up with, and that’s exactly why you had to leave.

You know what? I can’t even be mad. Because the cosmic comedy of it all is too perfect. The man with the ironclad moral compass, wobbling for a few years, finds his breaking point not in a battlefield, not in a courtroom, but in me. I was the moment that snapped you back to virtue. Forget holy revelations or thunderbolts from Zeus. Nope. It was me, apparently, that reset your compass to true north. Me, reduced to a scarlet letter you couldn’t wear without suffocating.

So yes, I cried. Yes, I drowned crops. Yes, I wailed like an opera singer who forgot the lyrics. But somewhere in the middle of the sobbing, I started laughing. Because isn’t it ridiculous? I, goddess of heartbreak, was left not because of lack of love, not because of a lack of desire, but because I was too perfect a mirror. Too much of a reminder. Too honest an emblem of your lapse. I wasn’t just a lover. I was Exhibit “A” to the downfall of your righteousness.

And then, because my brain is a deranged jukebox, I immediately thought of Mulan. Mushu screaming in my head: “Dishonor on you! Dishonor on your family! Dishonor on your cow!” And somehow that spiraled right into me half-singing, half-sobbing, “I got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine…”mascara running, wine glass in hand, serenading my own reflection like a rejected Disney princess who got lost in the wrong movie.

—SYL, Your Scarlet Letter