Page 6 of Fiend
I let out a dry laugh. “I don’t know? The fuckingtruth?” When my cigarette meets the filter, I smash it in the ashtray and immediately light up another.
“Those are going to kill you.”
“Fucking says you,” I growl out, and Leo laughs, stubbing his own cigarette out in the ashtray.
“What’s going on with us isn’t important because it doesn’tmatter.It will neverbeanything, so just leave it alone.”
“What the fuck ever, Leo.” I grit my teeth and spin the volume back up, trying to block out the anger surging through me. Anger I need to save until later. Until it really fucking matters.
I roll the windows up just as the soothing intro of Nirvana’s “Something In The Way” sounds through the car. I focus on the lyrics as I drive, instead choosing to think about the motherfucker we’re going to pay a visit to.
THREE
ESSA
The warm watersloshes over my shoulders as I shift to my side, trying to get more comfortable, but it’s no use. I’m too fucking pissed, but my back is killing me, and a bath isusuallythe only thing that helps.
Not today.
My anger at my stupid fucking husband is overriding everything and making my pain worse.
He has always amplified my pain.
I give up and roll to my back, letting the sudsy water settle back across my chest. I lean my head back against the cool porcelain of the tub—a tub Vincent bought specifically for me. It’s one of those huge clawfoot ones big enough for two people, and though I’m not usually a bath person, I use it every chance I can.
My eyes close against the harsh light glaring down around me. I wish I would have remembered to turn the fuckers off, but I was a little fucking preoccupied trying to forget Vincent is a fucking asshole.
These last two years have been nothing short of amazing. Well, as amazing as our relationship can be. We’ve had bumps in the road, but we have always worked through them together.
Our love is toxic at best and downright deadly at its worst. But that’s just us. That’s what we’ve always been.
It’s shit like this that’s hard to swallow—when he shuts me out, when he thinks I can’t fucking handle the worst parts of him.
I think sometimes he blocks out what he did to me—to us. How he technically ended my life for the briefest moment of time. I don’t. But not for the reasons one might think.
I remind myself daily to specifically remember the reasons I stayed.WhyI love him. He’s dark. Tortured. Still irreparably broken. But that’s the thing; we’re one and the same, and I think he forgets that.
I brush my fingers over the raised skin of my forearm, breathing heavily through my nose. My eyes burn as I recall cutting that word into my arm. At that specific moment in time, I didn’t think I could get any lower. I was ready to end it all, so fucking sick of everything. Of feeling hopeless, worthless. Meaningless.
Vincent eventually showed me that I was quite the opposite of everything I ever felt about myself. We built something amazing together, and while I know it’s nowhere near normal to anyone but us, I have the life I always wanted. Someone who loves me, in his own maniacal way. A home that is actually a home…
I swallow the lump in my throat and shoot up in the tub, water sloshing over the side and splashing onto the tile floor. I bend my knees and wrap my arms around myself as best I can—which isn’t much with my stomach in the fucking way.
I rest my forehead on my knees, my face turned to the right. My eyes land on the small, black, long, and rectangular table built around the side of the tub, against the wall. On the table is the pack of cigarettes I’ve been avoiding, my lighter, and the remote to the sound system that’s hardwired throughout the entire house.
Flashes of Holley’s pale face and blood dripping from her parted lips has me reaching for the pack and lighting one post haste. My eyes flutter closed as I inhale deeply. My first taste of nicotine in a long ass time causes my head to swim. The unexpected floating sensation has my eyes popping open, and I pull the cigarette from my lips with a cough.
“Motherfucker, I’m not used to that,” I say to myself. Scoffing, I reach for the remote and hit play on the sound system.
The Plot In You’s “Paradigm” starts in the middle of the song, and I instantly start bobbing my head along to the heavy beat as I smoke, forcing Holley from my head.
I miss her more than fucking anything. She was so happy then. With her life and her new boyfriend. I wanted it for her so fucking bad—that life. That happiness. But I ruined it for her. I stole her life because of my own selfishness. My inability to live with the deal I agreed to.
Sometimes, I wonder what she would think about Vincent now. Our…unconventionalrelationship and the fact that I’m about to have his baby.
After swallowing the lump in my throat, I suck in another drag of nicotine. When this dark cloud hangs over my head, threatening to pull me under, I can’tallowmyself to think of her. It’s so fucking selfish to force her from my thoughts, but if I don’t, I know I’ll lose myself. Especially right now.
I haven’t cut myself the entirety of this pregnancy because I made a promise that I wouldn’t risk anything happening with this baby. I’ve miraculously managed to keep it, but right now, my self-control is being tested to its fucking limits.
