Page 70 of My Lovely Tragedy
I’m so tired. Of fighting him. Of being angry.
Of forcing myself to pretend he didn’t make me need him. That he didn’t turn me into this… thisthingthat yearns and wants and craves every ounce of attention and touch and connection. Like he soldered our nerve endings together so that, without our flesh touching, there’s nothing but unimaginable pain and anguish as every fuckingcellyearns for its companion.
Like I didn’t let him fucking see me, here and now and every moment we’ve shared. How he didn’t turn away in disgust but instead opened his arms wider, asking for more. Wanting my affliction as his own. Plucking my strings in tune with his.
The only price I have to pay to finally have what I’ve always wanted but never dreamed possible is my life.
And now… it’s a price I’mbeggingto pay.
“My sweet boy. Look at what you’ve done.” His words bring more tears to the surface. They splash onto my arm, diluting my blood before pooling outward. Tobias smears them, too. This time with his thumb that rubs back and forth in circular motions, kneading my skin and the muscles beneath.
He presses into the tendons, finding a pressure point that makes me wince before easing back into his sultry pattern.
“I’m s-sorry,” I gasp on a hiccup. My hands tremble uncontrollably, tears no longer dripping steadily but flowing as the feeling of disappointment wells up inside, stronger than anything else.
“Shh, shh, darling. It’s okay. It’s okay.” Tobias draws closer, pushing himself between my spread legs, spreading them wider to the point my hips ache from the stretch. A sob bubbles in my throat, gurgling and choking. I gasp for breath through the snot and tears, and it’s not until Tobias brushes them away with a gentleness I don’t deserve, fingers resting against the side of my face, that I finally feel the air in my lungs, inflating the lungs just as they need.
With one hand still clasped around my arm, he strokes my face with the other, smearing fluids through my beard and strands of hair that stick all over the place. I finally force my eyes to open. He’s already looking at me, one of those rare times he doesn’t shy away from the intense connection our locked gazes bring.
And I wish for more than just the moonlight so I can see the crimson lakes swarming, but the dark pits I see now are stillenough.
He keeps up with his gentle assurances, lips moving gently, curving and pursing. I watch their movement, finding a sense of peace in just this. His hands on me, his hushed words I can’t make sense of over the static ringing in my ears.
But I feel the knife against my skin. The sharp edge of the blade poised with promises ofbetter.
“I can give you this, beloved. If this is what you need, you can have it.” His thumb finds rest against the hinge in my jaw, scraping over the soft skin along my ear. “In return, all I ask is that you give me the same.”
As I part my lips to give him every last shred of me, he says, “We all have something to hide. Some darkness better left unsaid, unacknowledged. But you don’t have to hide from me, Brooklyn.” His thumb burrows into the shallow cut, making me whimper. His lips are a hair’s breadth away. “I see you, just as you see me.” His breaths fan across my cheeks—damp and inviting.
“We are bitter darkness entwined, better together in every thrash than separated and screaming in silent agony.”
My head falls back against the couch, away from Tobias as his hand slips from my face, dragging down my throat and across my sternum. His palm splays flat against my chest, directly above my thrashing heart.
His touch soothes the ache, the undeniable truth of his words. Words I can’t process but understand all the same.
What they mean—whathe means.To me and my life now.
This is it.
There is only us.
I let my lids fall closed as my head bobs. The soft scratch of my hair against the fabric of the couch is the only sound in the room, but it’s quickly followed by Tobias’s sharp intake of breath, surprisingly unsteady. I crack open an eyelid, suddenly exhausted. It sinks into my bones with ease.
I watch silently as Tobias directs the blade over my skin again, further down my forearm, inches away from my chains, from the stark veins and tendons in my wrist. He doesn’t want to kill me. He just wants to hurt me—becauseIwant him to hurt me.
I want him to take the burden. To become responsible so I don’t have to think or worry or care that I’m obliterating a promise to myself. Because what the fuck do promises matter when this is who I am now?
I’m Tobias’s, and he is mine, and that’s all that matters.
And so, I give himme.
But just before I watch the silver sink into my ghastly pale skin washed out from the moonlight, I hear his voice—strong and calm and everything I need. “Promise me.”
Air in my lungs. I hold it. Exhale an,“Anything.”
“Do not hurt yourself. Not without me. I must always be here.” My eyebrows scrunch as I absorb his words, growing more confused by the second.
“Why—”
