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I have never needed him to save me or get me out of my mess. I managed to keep myself alive—barely—for the better part of eighteen years. A man isn’t going to swoop in to change that, regardless of the trajectory I’m on.
the only other thing I can do is tear my heart out of my chest and wrap it in a bow.
She doesn’t want me as much as I want her. She won’t turn the world upside down for me like I would for her. I would turn this earth into cinders—strike a single match and set this horrible world ablaze—if she asked me to. I’ve accepted all this because everything would be worth it as long as she feels something other than hatred toward me.
She didn’t love me last week or right now. She may not even love me a decade from now. But I will be wherever she is, even if she doesn’t want me. Man will always follow the light where there is darkness, and she is fire. The world is cold and empty without her.
“Everything I did, I did it for you. Staying back a year. Leaving my food on the desk for you to take, or buying your groceries because your grandfather/Whitlock Senior forgot to. Letting you pawn the watch I borrowed from my dad to buy a new bed because you slept on the floor after your mom took yours. Asking my brother for money three years ago just to buy the coat you always wear. Writing all of Kiervan’s college assignments. Doing his bidding for the past ten years. Changing your locks. Fixing your window when the latch wouldn’t close. Your house. Being here. I did all of it for you.
I’ve always heard her voice in my sleep. Imagining her talking nonstop or huffing and puffing with how much she wishes I’d leave her alone. I pretended I could feel her heart beating, and there was a pink blush between her freckles. I’d tell myself she was lying in her bed. Warm. But I knew she wasn’t. I helped myself into her room more times than I could count just to check if I could still feel her breath against my skin. It was always worse when she’d go on benders, because sometimes I’d find her room empty, and I wouldn’t be sure if I’d find her name on the obituary list instead.
im in love help
“It doesn’t matter if you are. Dead is dead, and I’m not losing the only other person I’ve ever cared about to something I can prevent.” My hold on her tightens. I can’t go through something like that again. “I can lock you up, keep it all away from you, but none of that will mean shit if you don’t want to.”
“I’m not your responsibility,” she says breathily, peering up at me with blue eyes. “And yet, there is nothing in this world that will keep me from being by your side. Dead, alive, or somewhere in between. I was there for you before. Then once everything is said and done, and you’re looking for someone to hold your hand or be your gun, I’ll still be there.”
“Just because the words aren’t said, doesn’t mean I don’t wake up and feel it every day—regardless of how much you piss me off.”
It’s as if I finally know what sunlight feels on my skin after watching from the shade my whole life.
Knowing that I’m truly wanted is a heady feeling that makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
And maybe, just maybe, when I die, I’ll still remember what being cared for feels like.
He’s got the look of someone drugged up on a cocktail of everything they could get their hands on; I can tell by the rot hiding beneath his smile.
“You may be a psychopath, but touch her again and I’ll make sure you feel me break every single bone in your hand.”
This is why it’s better to be lost at the bottom of a bottle or safe in my tower. No one can touch me there, even once I lay my heart out it’ll still be safe because I’ll forget it exists.
Kohen has put himself out there for me every single day when I never asked for it. For years he’s sacrificed his sanity and dignity for me. I just hope he knows that there’s someone on this earth that sees him, and is willing to bleed for him too.
Everyone hates Mondays. Well, as I’ve gotten older, and therefore wiser, I’ve come to realize that I hate every day of the week.
“Don’t rush me.” Then, I move slower. They go low, I go lower.
My wings aren’t clipped; they don’t exist. And I’m fucking sick and tired of it. I’m done.
He was the first man to kiss me like I’m a one-of-a-kind masterpiece that’s too precious to be displayed on a wall. He was the first person to touch my skin and not make me wonder if I’d find bruises where his fingers were. Mostly, he’s the first person who saw my dying heart and wanted to bring it to life.
He has enough demons to drown in, and I have mine. I don’t want to see him as an enemy anymore—lord knows I have enough of those.
“You either walk in alone or with me by your side. Either way, we’re leaving together. I told you once, your death is mine, Thief. If anyone makes you cry, then their death is yours. I just need to know if you want it served on a silver platter or gold.”
My breath catches when he kisses my forehead. “As my batshit crazy woman wishes.”
Throughout my life, I’ve faced so many things I didn’t deserve—things that shouldn’t happen to anyone. If there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that I do not deserve this man. I don’t deserve the way he makes the pain go away. I don’t deserve how he looks at me like he might actually love me. I don’t deserve the life he could give me.
It’s too shallow to be called love. Too deep to be called infatuation. But something in between that tastes like acceptance.
When the hate is gone, there will only be pain. But that pain means nothing when it’s all I’ve ever known.
I want to put her in thirty different positions and fuck her in each one. I’ve never been a man of God, but I would get down on my knees and worship her until the day hell takes me. She’s radiating feral energy, and I want to consume every last drop.
No amount of makeup can hide her sunken eyes or the purple hues beneath them. Blaze can spend hours in the bathroom; it won’t make the blues of her eyes any less drained.
One day, she’ll figure out how to ask for help. This woman, who’s all hard edges and burning rage, is covered in scars inside and out. Some of the wounds are still gaping, bleeding a sea of red as she holds her head up as if the world isn’t out to get her. She’s the strongest person I know, and I want to spend every day making sure she sees it too.
She wiggles her feet as I tie the last knot, then help her up. “I’m like a fucked-up Cinderella.” “Are you going to turn into a pumpkin at midnight?” “Really? A ginger hair joke? What are we, in middle school?”
This is the girl I fell for. Not the fiery hair or the blue eyes, but the explosive personality. Filling a whole place with her presence. Throwing jokes even when exhaustion lines every inch of her silhouette. As long as she has room, my girl will always burn. But no fire lasts without someone giving her the things she needs, and she’s been slowly dwindling out for years.
Hold my goddamn hand, Thief. Say you aren’t my date one more time, and you’re walking into the hall with your panties ripped, and my come dripping down your leg.”
The klepto grabs a fistful of my shirt and burns her stare into me as she says, “If anyone touches you, I’ll rip their ear off with my teeth.”
Her jokes are fucking horrendous. So is her dancing. Her singing? Next-level terrible. And I still wouldn’t change a single thing about her.
but I let him pick me up and carry me against his chest like I’m a little kid. It’s kind of sad to admit that my inner child is preening at the way I’m being held.
She deserves the whole fucking world, not scraps. My girl is a fighter; always has been, and always will be. She’s been through more battles than I have, and I will never be half as resilient as she is. But the fighting will have to stop. One day, she won’t have any more punches to throw.
I don’t want to be her grief. I don’t want to be any part of the reason she feels the need to curl her fingers into fists or keep her walls up around herself. I don’t even want to be her everything. I want her heart to beat easily the second she wakes up in the morning. I want her to smile for the sake of smiling. Laugh, cry tears of joy, skip around until she’s shitting fucking rainbows. I want her to be happy. And if everyone has to die for that to happen, then I better get good at digging graves.
“What if you make me come undone and find nothing there that you want?” Brushing my lips over hers, I say, “I’ve seen all of you, and you wedge yourself deeper into my soul every time I see more.”
“Because you won’t let that happen. You’ll fight until your nails bleed and everybody has fallen. Not because you have to, but because that’s who you are. You’re a fighter. But you don’t need to fight the world alone. You never did.”
“Maybe I haven’t made it clear to you; I will hunt you down to the end of the earth just so you don’t feel alone for a second. I will find you, even in another lifetime. If you’re in hell, then I’ll burn willingly. My soul is yours, Thief.”
With or without a pinky promise, I’ll help her burn each and every motherfucker who has ever wronged her.
I’ve been in my family’s presence for all of ten seconds and it’s already like I’ve never left. Mother takes Kiervan’s side, Father doesn’t react,
This is mercy compared to what I had planned for him. I planned on breaking each and every one of his bones until he begged me to stop, praying that I’d let him go—the same way I did when he locked me in the tub.
He could have screamed. He could have shouted his pleas to the rooftop. But his voice was taken away. So no one heard him. No one came to his rescue. Just like the day in the tub.
I’m no expert, but I’d call it a clean kill. Whatever a man can do, a woman can do better.
Plus, little ol’ me couldn’t possibly do this. Or be the reason behind McGill’s closed-casket funeral. I’m rainbows, butterflies, and a goddamn fuckin delight. I shit innocence and exhale purity.
It looks so peaceful up there. Calm. I wonder what would happen if I became one with the stars. Would it be serene, or would life be like it is down here? Would I still be an inferno of rage condensed into one body, moving through space because there’s no other choice? Will people call me pretty from a distance, but turn their eyes away the closer they get? Hot to the touch. Able to destroy. More terrifying with each piece of knowledge acquired. But still, pretty. Just from over there. Like a star. Hidden away to only come out at night, when the sky is clear and the clouds pushed away. And
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Kohen calls me a fighter. But if this is what fighting means, I don’t know how much more fight I have in me. He calls me fiery and beautiful and wild. I don’t feel like any of those things.
I want to close my eyes and hope that I don’t wake up so I won’t have to live with pain anymore. I want to curl up and wither away to become one with the earth; maybe then I’ll do something good for once in my life. But ...
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“It isn’t my place to pry, so forgive me if I’m out of line. I once gave a man my whole world, and he left with it. I did it all over again with the next man. If it weren’t for my husband, I wouldn’t have survived it—life for a young woman such as yourself isn’t the same as it was for me back then. What I’m saying is that there are good ones out there. But just because one person isn’t as bad as the other doesn’t make them any good.”
