Page 66 of My Lovely Tragedy
A gulp echoes in my ears. Saliva cracks inside his mouth as his jaw creaks open. My heart gallops, hammering wildly against my sternum. Adrenaline surges in my veins, easing the pounding at my temples to a dull roar so easily ignored when Brooklyn is against me.
My hands tremble, weak and shaky, so I press them deeper into his flesh to still the vibrations.
I focus on my heartbeat, the heavy throb of it. On Brooklyn, larger than I and yet so small in my arms as he curls into me. Around me,in me.Swallowing me whole.
“If I ask you to let me go, would you?” Brooklyn asks in a hoarse croak. It takes my mind a moment to catch up to his words, to digest their meaning and what he really wants.
Disappointment slams into me, burning my eyes.
I blink. Then, I feel the loss.
Brooklyn shoves himself to his feet, albeit unsteady, leaving me sprawled across the floor in the wake of his maim and destruction. I watch him, beyond helpless and hopeless, as he yanks open the window closest to my piano and jumps through the gap, out into the frigid, evening air.
I watch as he disappears, chains sliding and clanking against the wall and over the windowsill before they still, though their echo remains.
My own brand of betrayal sinks deep in my gut, poisonous and inky black. It travels through my bloodstream, to every organ and vessel, to my brain where it feathers out, making itself a new home inside me. Along with it, realization and opportunity lost.
I stare at the space Brooklyn vacated, easily picturing him just on the other side. Buttocks planted in the snow, knees to his chest with his mangled arms wrapped tightly around them.
His head will be back against the cabin, hair billowing around him as it catches in the breeze. Those lips, chapped and cracked, will be turned downward in a grimace of his own version of pain and disappointment.
He’ll be toying with his chains. Tracing each link with a reverence he doesn’t even realize—let alone acknowledge for what it is.
Brooklyn craves what I have given him—the loss of choice. He doesn’t want to choose what he wants. All he needs is to be taken care of—to have someone do it all for him.
But I will not give in that easily.
If my darlingcorvuswants his wings clipped entirely, he is going to have to beg me for it. And only then, with the haunting plea on his lips, will I give it to him.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
BROOKLYN
Days are spent in silence.
Not a word is spoken between us.
We fall into a routine with it. Not comfortable but known. Whatis.Hatred and dependency fill me with every minute of silence that screams. The unknown is always lurking and festering—in him and in me.
Tobias said he’ll let me go, but he’ll keep me forever. Because that’s what he wants from me—my freedom. My life. All his for the taking.
What’s the point of staying trapped if this is all it will ever be? Is there more than this, or will it be just us… always?
The thought sits hot and uncomfortable. So, I write everything. Nothing. And Tobias watches me, writing his own version of everything and nothing, the two impossibly entwined, yet never touching.
The words on the page in front of me don’t mean a thing. They’re messy and chaotic versions of my thoughts, never quite coming to fruition on the page. Left flat and useless.
There are no words to explainthis.Whatever it is I’m feeling.
Tobias has burned all feeling from my body. Left me vacant and hollow, filled with pieces of him that don’t feel quite right, but I know if they were ripped away, I’d feel their loss even more than my own.
It’s… unnerving. The sensation wriggling and festering beneath my skin, along my muscles and tendons, becoming one with my blood as it infiltrates my organs and circles back around.
And yet, in spite of it all, the jumble of lyrics staring back at me are what they are. Real and raw and painfully accurate but…
What comes after?
Pitch, cool darkness
