Page 70 of Sticks & Serpents

“Just… stop,” I muttered, fighting against the instinct to let her reach out again.

But she didn’t pull back; she leaned in instead, and it took everything in me not to surrender to the warmth of her presence. Each second stretched painfully as my mind raced with thoughts of how fragile this moment felt—how easily it could slip away if I let my guard down.

“I can’t do this,” I said finally, feeling the weight of those words settle between us like an anchor. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

She opened her mouth as if to argue, but nothing came out. Just confusion and hurt written across her features. That look twisted something deep inside me—a raw ache that made me want to protect her even as I pulled away.

I couldn’t stand being exposed like this—not when every part of me screamed at the thought of losing control again.

Holly moved cautiously, kneeling on the bed. Her eyes locked onto mine, and I felt the weight of her gaze pressing down like a suffocating blanket. “Talk to me.”

I let out a laugh, but it came out hollow and bitter. “Talk to you? About what, Holly?”

My voice was colder than I intended, each word cutting through the air between us like glass.

“How fucked up I am? Is that what you want?”

She flinched at my tone, but she didn’t back down. That fierce determination flickered in her eyes, and it only fueled my anger.

“That’s not what I?—”

I shook my head sharply, yanking on my jacket as if it could shield me from the chaos swirling inside. “I shouldn’t have stayed.”

As I backed away from her, I could feel the space closing in around us. It was like I had become an exposed nerve—raw and aching—and she was reaching for me again. But I couldn’t let her touch me; I felt like if she did, I'd break into a thousand pieces right there.

Her voice softened, almost pleading as she reached for me again. “You don’t have to do this, Damien.”

But I already was.

The moment she saw those scars—evidence of my past—it became too real. Too close. Every moment of vulnerability threatened to spill over, exposing the ugly truth behind my façade. What if she looked at me differently? What if she realized just how damaged I really was?

So I did the only thing I knew how to do: I ran.

Each step back felt heavy as if the very ground beneath me were pulling me deeper into a pit of despair. My heart raced—not from fear—but from a desperate need to escape this confrontation that felt too big for both of us.

“Damien!” Holly called after me, her voice cracking slightly as it echoed through the room.

But there was no turning back now; there never had been. Each step away brought relief mingled with regret—a vicious cycle that twisted in my gut and made me question everything about what we had just shared.

I left her there—still kneeling on the bed, confusion etched across her face—as if our world had shattered into a million fragments and left nothing but silence in its wake.

I stormed outside, the cold morning air slamming into me like a slap across the face. The chill bit through my skin, but I didn’t care. I needed to feel something—anything other than the emotion that churned inside me.

My hands shook as I shoved them into my pockets, my breath coming out in uneven gasps. Each inhale felt sharp, like ice carving through my lungs. But I didn’t stop moving; I couldn’t. If I did, I might start thinking again—about her, about us—and that was a risk I wasn’t willing to take.

My mind spiraled in a storm of thoughts.I should’ve covered them.The scars were a reminder of everything I had tried to bury, and now Holly had seen them. She knew too much, and it terrified me.I should’ve never let her in.Letting her see the broken parts of me was a mistake—a crack in the armor I had spent years building around myself.

I should’ve never fucking stayed.Every second spent with her felt like walking a tightrope above an abyss, one misstep away from falling into darkness. And yet she hadn’t run from me; she hadn’t flinched when those scars caught her eye.

Holly should hate me for what I’d done—for the way I let anger control my actions and led to chaos that touched everyone around me. For being too much and too broken to handle anything resembling normalcy or peace.

But she didn’t.

That was what twisted in my gut like a knife; she stood there wanting to understand, wanting to know why those scars existed as if they held answers instead of pain. It made no sense—her unwavering presence only served as another reminder of how deeply flawed I was and how desperately unworthy of love I felt.

I shoved my hands deeper into my pockets as if trying to bury them further away from reality, from the storm brewing inside me. She should have turned away after seeing all of it, but instead, she kept coming closer.

And that was terrifying because it meant she saw something in me worth holding onto when all I wanted was for her to run screaming in the opposite direction.

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