Page 110 of Architecti
“E… excuse me,” she stammers.
I lock onto her eyes and stand immobile.I will not move.
She makes herself tiny, pressing her spine flat against the doorframe as she tries to squeeze by without touching me.
She keeps her head turned away, focused on her goal: the exit.
“Boo,” I growl and jerk forward.
She screams and lunges, tripping and careening towards the floor.Her hands are full of her clothes.She doesn’t put them out to save herself and smacks her head on a stone tile.
She’s motionless for a moment, and then scrambles up, her head bleeding.
We’re the same now, she and I.
Blood leaks down her cheeks the way tears run down mine.
She meets my gaze for one long second, her expression crumpled, smeared with my girlfriend’s come.
My fingers slip to my hip as if I carry a blade.She doesn’t know I don’t.
Her eyes follow.
She steps back.
I could do it.Take her life.Ruin mine.
She’s not worth it.
Neither of them are.
She doesn’t wait any longer, she turns and runs, slamming the door and vanishing.
Slowly, I turn to Aurelia.Now the woman is out of sight, the heat of my anger is extinguishing.
But I need it.Holding onto it will keep me strong.Every other emotion is a waste.Why feel sad when this is clearly already over?Why feel grief when I already sold my soul?
I close my eyes, trying to sink into the furnace deep in my chest, but it’s betraying me.Locking itself away.Abandoning me when I need it most.I grab at it.Trying to hold the threads of pain, but they’re slippery, like oversoaked rose stems.
“Midnight,” Aurelia says.Her words are soft.How odd that my name on her tongue used to fill me with stars and moondust.She made me feel like I was immortal, like every time she whispered my name it etched another year into my soul.
My eyes flash and she recoils.There is no point having a conversation.This is over.
“You broke us,” I say.
She laughs.It’s so sudden, so unexpected, that this time I’m the one recoiling.
“And you have a saviour complex.”She sits up on the bed, her legs still bare and dares to brandish her rage at me like she’s entitled to it.
“Do you have any idea how suffocating your love is?”
“I saved your fucking life, Aurelia.I gave up my soul for you.”
“Oh, please.You were on a mission to self-destruct.I told you over and over not to try and save me.But you didn’t listen.And then you’re all up in my face every second of every day, never giving me a chance to breathe or live.”
“YOU WERE GOING TO DIE.”I’m screaming now, and I’m not sure if it’s at me or her.I don’t understand what is happening or how we’ve gotten to this place.
“AND YOU STOPPED ME LIVING ANYWAY.”
