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I knehat it was

That feeling I’d had that first day on the boat, when the sun was high and warm on my neck in Barcelona — the way my stomach had soh ere still tied up at the dock

It was a warning

I didn’t see it then, didn’t recognize it as anything ut

But noith the blood pooling aroundinto the teak and my hair all the same, I understood

It was a warning

The universe knew long before I did the way this all would end, and it cautioned me the only way it kne

But I ignored it

Now, as the blackness invadednulimpse of the man responsible for it all and I wondered how I never saw it co

How did I never see what he was capable of, when pushed, when threatened?

How did I ever let him hold me, kiss me, have me in every way there is to be had?

How did I fall for the lie those eyes told, for the heart within that chest, for a man so evil?

They say love is blind, and in ine that means you look past the faults of those you love — how they leave the cap off the toothpaste or throw their dirty clothes on the floor — or perhaps past your own inhibition telling you that maybe you could do better, that maybe you deserve more

In this case, it meant death