Page 57 of Executing Malice
Cheese, my favorite blanket and my novel. Even though focusing on the lives of fictional characters is the last thing I want to do.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DANTE
––––––––
No.
No. No. No. No. No. No!
This is wrong. This is all wrong.
What even happened?
We were supposed to go out into the forest. We were supposed to lay out the blanket and watch the stars like we used to. I was going to hold her and...
But she was talking so fast and somehow it spiraled, and I got lost. My brain froze when it realized she was walking away. She was leaving me. It was eight years ago all over again, only this time she was telling me to stay away from her.
Stay. Away.
The words slam against the hollows of my skull, echoes through the chambers until it’s reverberating through my marrow.
Why would she say that?
Why the fuck would she say that?
She doesn’t mean it.
She can’t.
She was angry. Maybe scared. I pushed too hard. I did too much. I fucking scared her.
“Fuck!”
My fingers clamp into my hair and I pull like that might eject the memories of her standing there, eyes shiny with tears and betrayal.
And I ... I just stood there.
I didn’t stop her.
I couldn’t move.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
But she looked at me like I was a stranger. Like I was some monster who crushed her heart.
Maybe I did.
I can’t breathe.
My chest is caving in. Crushing me. Suffocating me. But I deserve it. I ruin everything. I always ruin everything. I open my mouth and out comes poison that kills. Kills me. Kills Leila.
I can’t do this again.
I can’t go back to that silence. That emptiness. I can’t go back to the loneliness where her laughter used to echo.
I can’t go back to no longer existing.
