Except you didn’t. You said, “I have… love for you,” as if it were an infection.
Except Stede hasn’t told Ed he loves him because he respects his boundaries.
Except you can’t make yourself feel better, Izzy, by equating yourself with Stede. By suggesting Ed has a pattern for hurting people he has romantic feelings for, because he can’t bear to be loved in return, or whatever it is you’re suggesting.
Hearing he is ‘loved’, isn’t why he shot you, though it confused and disgusted him. It was because you reduced the mess created over your abuse towards him, to his feelings over Stede ‘fucking’ Bonnet.
Hearing he is loved, isn’t why Ed left Stede, because he never said it, though it is what Ed needs to believe, and eventually will.
Ed’s not a complicated man. He is a man very capable of loving and being loved. It’s others he doubts because he has been let down, lied to, and dehumanised, and you just don’t understand him at all.
And you are not the forerunner, with your First Wives’ Club delusion. Oh, he did it to me first. He’s just a bit toxic like that. No. And no.
