Page 3 of Heart Shaped Wreckage
I heard the doorbell ring from above. My sanctuary was in the basement, where the sunlight only penetrated where I wanted it to. The back wall could open to the outside, and I had invested a lot to achieve this during the redesign I completed many years ago. Moonlight was my choice, and when the skies were clear, its light shone perfectly upon my altar for many hours throughout the night.
“Bernie!” Dandelion flew from the altar and soared up the stairs. He didn’t have an omniscient eye. Bernie was the only visitor we’d had in months. All of my other so-called friends had abandoned me or chosen the devil instead.
I slowly dragged my feet up the stairs and around the corner to my small living room to find Bernadette standing in the doorway. Her red hair, as usual, was a frizzy mess that surrounded her face like a halo. She was not an angel, but not quite a demon. She was something else. Something that lived in the gray.
Dandelion sat on her shoulder with his wings spread. I had not been very good company to him, and he was excited when Bernie showed up.
“You look like shit.” Her matter-of-factness was a trait I adored in her. “You have a smudge on your cheek.”
I reached up and wiped.
“Other cheek, dick breath.” Her laugh filled the room with the most joyful sound – a sound that had been absent from this place for too long.
“Pathetic,” Dandelion nuzzled into her hair.
“My poor sweet baby is being ignored.” She petted his beak.
“I’m just gonna go sulk in my lair while you two make out.” I frowned and sighed loudly.
“This has to stop, Landon. Your hair looks like a mop, and the bags under your eyes could hold my entire wardrobe. You can’t go on like this.”
I turned to look at myself in the mirror. My blondish-red hair actually looked like greasy dishwater. My blue eyes faded into the darkness that had surrounded them. They sank into my face.
“When’s the last time you ate something? Please do not lie to me! I’d hate to curse you.” The way she stared at me made my knees shake. Bernie was my best friend, but she was also powerful and magically bipolar. She wasn’t quite human, andnot quite an eternal. She walked the realms in between, but it wasn’t by her own choice. She had been cursed centuries ago, and that curse had poorly backfired on the wizard who tried to hurt her. Instead, he gave her powers that made her something more than she ever had been. She still had her magical powers, but now she controlled the darkness as a daughter of Nyx. Apparently, the old one liked to adopt wayward witches, which caused her alarm. It was better to have them as a servant than as a foe.
Bernie was fierce and sometimes a bit mad.
I loved her.
“I know, mom…” I rolled my eyes. “I look like shit and feel even shittier.”
“Myles is the shitty one, and you’re letting him have too much power over you. He was hot, sure. He played Lacrosse and Rugby, so his body was Apollo-like. But! And this is a very big but – he was also kind of an asshole.”
“He was, but he could also be sweet and loving.”
“So can a shark.”
“He wasn’t always a…”
“A tiger is beautiful and would be great to cuddle with except for the teeth and claws. It could bite your face off.”
“Ok.” I threw my hands up in the air. It was not worth arguing with her when I knew she was right. “Point taken.”
“Go shower. This house reeks of desperation and sadness. When you come down, I will have a cocktail prepared, and we are going to talk about anything and everything besides the asshole and his little demon feet. Got it?”
I nodded. I climbed my stairs and heard Dandelion laughing hoarsely at me. I quickly sniffed my underarms and almost retched. I was a walking dumpster. How did I let myself get so… Well, I knew the answer. When I loved, I loved with everything I had. It was a fault of mine. I disappeared into him. His favoritethings became my favorite things, and if he didn’t like something I did, I swallowed it and forgot about it. God… I was totally co-dependent and always had been.
I was a second-rate witch and apparently a third-rate human being.
Pathetic. Dandelion was right.
None of this was news to me. I had been down this road before, but I usually recovered faster than I did this time. I really loved Myles, even if there were tons of red flags I should have noticed way before he left me. But in my head, I wasn’t actually much of a catch myself. He was hot, and he treated me great, most of the time. He had his moods, of course. He could be a little nasty sometimes, but couldn’t we all?
Stop!
I had to stop trying to rationalize everything.
He was evil, and he needed to be destroyed. It would be a public service to take him off the board before he hurts someone else.
