Okay, so I know that I already talked about a Taylor Swift song in one of my earlier “Tunes Tuesday” post, but I wanted to revisit her discography for inspiration as I was writing. Once again, I came turned to evermore, Taylor’s most recent album. There are many gems on the album, but one song I keep coming back to is “Tolerate It.” This track tells the story about a toxic relationship between two people. The narrator of the song talks about their love for this person and how it is unrequited. Their significant other doesn’t love them, they put up with them, or “tolerate” them.

This parallels the relationship between my female protagonist and her boyfriend at Act I in the novel. Things between them are very tense and my heroine knows that it’s only a matter of time until things fall apart. So she is doing everything she can to please her man, even sacrificing her own happiness. But, instead of receiving love in return, all she gets is contempt. “Tolerate It,” is a devastating portrait of abusive love, but it can also be empowering. It takes a lot of strength to realize when things are wrong for you and to take steps to change your life. My heroine does that. She doesn’t want to leave because she is afraid of change, but she’s been hurt one too many times and decides that she is no longer going to “tolerate” her treatment. She is going to find her happiness and find true love.

This is such a heartbreaking, yet beautiful song. I definitely think you should check it out.