For She Is Wrath

by Emily Varga

This was who I would become in front of him. A sweet, beautiful confection. And when he bit into the honeyed sugar, it would be poison filling his mouth.

The problem when someone you loved betrayed you was that you had a lifetime of good memories with them that you had to examine in a different light. What was once a safe place to be—beside him, engulfed in his arms, inhaling the smell of rainstorms and pine—was actually the most dangerous place of all.

“I would read you like a novel. From cover to cover, learning everything about you.” He tilted his head. “Leisurely, only taking me out when you felt like it?” I snorted. “Is that how you read your novels, Mazin? How uninspiring. No, I mean in a fierce frenzy, by candlelight, devouring you until I finished every page and committed it to memory, and then I’d flip right back to the front and start again from the beginning.”

“I’d read you like scripture, a prayer. And all the worship I felt, I’d heap at your feet.”

I wasn’t sure if it was to pull him closer or stab him with my dagger. But I wouldn’t do that. Not yet. Not until I burned him up inside like he burned me. Until there was nothing left of him but this wanting. Until he begged for me like a dying man in the desert, and I the mirage that could have saved him. And in the end decided to let him starve.

“A knife goes with every outfit.”

“I can’t tell if you’re flirting by asking me to kill you or not.”