I realized then the true insult. He didn’t just lie. He cast me as the dull, boring warden of his "real" self, while he lived a fantasy where he was a king. My love was the prison he escaped from by pretending to be someone else.
The final nail was in his profile bio, which I’d missed: "Freedom is a double life." He was right. He was free. And I was just the idiot paying half the rent on his prison cell, mistaking his contempt for kindness!