Monsters in Disguise

I met a monster when I was eleven. He may not have had horns or sharp teeth, and he may not have smelled like blood, but a monster he was.

In fact, he looked nothing like a monster. He wore the beauty of an angel, and had the charm of a salesman, all with soft laughter and Manson-like charisma. In short, he looked harmless.

The worst I thought he could do was, perhaps, break my heart.

I never saw the monster that lived beneath the surface until I was thirteen. By then, I had known him two years and trusted him more than I should’ve.

I should have known better. He was the type to put women down in a subtle-joking way. Every now and then, I’d catch him in a lie, but he always reassured me that something had slipped his mind. He made comments that made me a little uncomfortable, but I always brushed it away. I mean, he was just charming that way, he was a flirt.

But then he started to say things to me, things I knew deep down were too far. I tried to convince myself that it meant nothing, and I ignored it.

One day, his words changed. It turned from words to actions and from soft laughter to rough hands. I saw the monster that day. He looked me in the eyes, and I knew, he was going to do whatever he liked. There was nothing I could do about it.

Before he was able to unleash the beast completely, before he had pulled the thin layers separating us away, someone interrupted. And just like that, he stowed the monster away in some deep, dark cave inside himself. He laughed and talked and made it all go away without a single question or objection to what he had done.

That was the first time I saw a monster in real life, and that day I realized some humans, they’re just monsters in disguise.