What was it that I was addicted to? Was it the man? Was it the love? Was it the storm?

No. It was the calm.

He took my hand in and he guided me to the eye of the storm.

Madness was swirling around us, and he stood there with me in tranquillity.

He held me still when I felt so unsteady.

He said he loved me when I felt so unloved, so unlovable. 

He was the escape from the chaos when I thought I was trapped. 

He was the kindness to counter her cruelty. 

He was the touch that countered the loneliness. 

I fell in love with the calm, with the peace, with the escape. 

But I knew it was finite, and I knew the storm would catch up to me. I knew it would envelop me. 

Knowing it was coming and not wanting to be caught off guard, I provoked it. 

I screamed at the skies and dared them to give me the best they had. 

And the challenge was accepted with a thunderous rumble. 

The quiet comfort faded into the distance as the raging storm descended on me, on everyone near me, on him.

It swept away everything good, everything calm.

It battered love; it drowned friendship; it shattered hearts.

There were tears; there was screaming. 

It pushed him back to the place he was before, a place he longed to leave.

It forced him to leave the woman he actually loved. The woman he chose over me.

He blames me for daring the storm to descend. He blames me for his loss.

Perhaps I am the reason he lost her, but I am not the cause. I am not the storm.