The Fabric of Our Souls

by K.M. Moronova

For the broken ones who are in need of something dark, morbid, and beautiful.

Whoever coined the phrase “sticks and stones” is an asshole, don’t you think? Words indeed hurt more than stones. Thanks for trying to gaslight me out of it though. It didn’t work.

Avoidance has always been my coping mechanism. If I don’t think about it, it doesn’t matter. My day goes on.

I’m burning inside, and it hurts. I just want to stop hurting.

My mind is a plague that needs to be cured and people like me are damned to chase this mysterious elixir.

Nurse Hull chuckles quietly as he replaces my IV bag and I dare a glance up at him. The bedside lamp lights his face from beneath and his blue eyes flick down to me as he finishes up. I take a deep breath as our eyes connect. He’s fucking beautiful.

“Well, I thought it was funny—you know, as a bystander who isn’t foreign to being unwell.

“I’m not Nurse Hull. I borrowed these scrubs.” His amusement is disturbing. I narrow my eyes at him. “What the fuck—why?” He shrugs and walks toward the door. He flips the light switch and my bedside lamp goes out. “So I don’t get complaints from people like your brother.” He laughs as the door shuts quietly behind him.

“I think next time you should wait.” He says

“Wait for what?”

“For anything. Someone, something, anything. Wait for a devil like me if you have to.”

“You should wait… and it doesn’t have to be for anything specific. I’m just saying—wait for the weight of the world to pass. Wait until the tremors that wrack through your skull drift into the depths again. Wait until the sun rises, and the light makes you feel a little less pointless.”

“What if waiting doesn’t work?” I whisper. Liam smiles easily at me. His presence is like an eerie forest. I want to stay for a while and sit quietly in his dreary gravity. “You let me know and I’ll hold you until the darkness fades.”

Jesus 😭

He raises his hand in a wave and his ebony rings glint back at me. I try to remember every little thing about him, because I’m not sure fate will ever bring us together again.

Liar—those rings are all onyx. He’s still holding onto the hope they’ll banish his grief too.

“Liam?” His name leaves my lips on a breath. Liam’s eyes widen before they flick back to Jericho. “She’s my new roommate?” He doesn’t sound upset, more surprised than anything.

He’s every bit the mysterious man from the first night we met. I should’ve known. He’s sick too.

“We’re the perfect elixir. I want to feel alive so fucking desperately—I’ll chase the high forever if I have to. Nothing’s worked for me yet.”

“You want to die. I hate that so much, Wynn. The thought of you wanting to leave this world hurts me, but… for the first time, it’s a pain that I really don’t like. It’s disgusting to me that you don’t want to live. You don’t like seeing pain or enduring it, right? You’d rather run away and not feel anything.”

“Remedium meum,” he murmurs,

“My cure.”

“I’ll stop you in your darkest hours. Do you promise to do the same for me?”

It’s been hard trying to keep my heart condition in control. My anxiety and stress don’t help either. The medications don’t work as well as they should. If I hear another doctor say, “Oh no, but you’re so young. It’s so tragic,” and give me that pitiful fucking frown…

The only thing I’ve learned when I shut the book is that Liam might be a dangerous person. Well, more dangerous than I already thought.

“Her name is Wynn,” I mumble as my thumb caresses the fresh scab on my forefinger, sending small thrills of pain through my nerves. “And she’s mine.”

I promise I’ll have your hips unaligned by morning.” He shoves me toward the laundry area.

“Crosby was your old roommate?” Liam’s eyes turn cold and empty, sending a shudder of dread through me. “Drop it, Wynn. I won’t ask nicely again.” Irritation pulls at his features. I guess I’ll have to ask someone else.

“I’m Liam Waters, your roommate.” He glares at me and a few others laugh. Jericho’s brows are still pulled together firmly. “I like pain. So don’t be afraid to bite my dick while you’re sucking it tonight.”

She’s the image of heartache—and I want the pain she instills inside my heart forever.

“You better cover that pussy up if you don’t want me to fuck your brains out tonight, Wynn.”

“But it only makes you all the more a wonder. So again, who could possibly plant such dark, sinister seeds into a heart like yours?” His eyes soften. Was that supposed to be a compliment?

Liam saved him… I wonder if it was by chance—if Liam was on one of his weird early-morning walks and just happened across him.

“Dare.” He chuckles and narrows his eyes at me. “Kiss me.” “Are you sure you’re not drunk?” Liam laughs again and shakes his head. “I’m not. Are you going to do it or not?” He stares at me with a burning fire in his eyes.

Why’d he have to be so fucking beautiful? I hate this man. I hate him.

“Don’t think for a second that I like you. You’re just a guy with a dick, it happens to be Friday night, and I’m horny.”

“Even your tears repulse me.” I hate him so fucking much.

My eyes widen and I freeze, palm still fisted over his chest and trembling with rage. Did I just attack someone like a fucking wild animal? Oh my God.

It’s so much more than a kiss. My heart pounds like a war drum in my chest and butterflies flap their wings inside my stomach.

I want her… more than I care to admit. I want her.

“Remedium meum.”

Tears still spill over my cheeks and there’s no stopping them. I haven’t cried in years… Liam playing from the heart so freely was like a bullet to the chest. No chains kept his music away from the world. It reached me. And I’m… sad.

The soft pad of his thumb brushes the tears off my cheek as he mutters, “Did I reach you?” He touches me delicately. It’s the first ray of warmth he’s shown me. And that makes me really fucking sad too. “Yes, you did.”

“Tell me to stop then, Wynn. Tell me you don’t want to suck my dick and get fucked out of your mind. Say it.”

That wasn’t hate-fucking. I think we both realize it. And we know we’re in deep trouble.

The fabric of our souls is thin—we’ve been wandering this world just to unite in this small corner of the universe. Our connection is frightening and enchanting all at once.

If I could go back in time, I’d tell my seventeen-year-old self that the car accident with my brothers was just the first tragic scene of my unfortunate play. I’d tell him that it gets much worse before he ends up in an institution. Before he finds her.

That itch pulls beneath my skin, the desire to feel pain, to hurt myself. I want to hurt as much as she and Lanston do; I want to feel the pain they experience. I want to punish myself for not being a better man… for not being good enough.

It robs all the breath from my lungs. She’s embracing me so delicately, and for the first time, I feel as broken as I perceived her to be. No one’s ever hugged me so desperately with their entire heart.

“It was never my own to share. Those before us… they made this place.” Those before us.

“Anyway, I stumbled across this place a few months ago. No one was taking care of it, so I figured those who did have long since moved on from Harlow Sanctum. Their absence from this place haunts me, yet at the same time gives me hope. Their rings are a symbol of perseverance.”