The Bad Guy

by Celia Aaron

My name is Sebastian Lindstrom, and I’m the villain of this story.

My sins are my own. They keep me company.

I performed a brief calculus, trying to decide what a normal man would say in this situation, which string to pull. It was an equation I’d learned from my earliest days—figuring out what people expected so that no one would notice there was something wrong with me.

The sensation of falling and soaring melded into one. How could the slight upturn of her mouth create so much chaos? I wanted more.

You’re a dream of mine.

Right before I lost sight of her, she turned and smiled at me, as if sending me a spark of hope. The spark lit an inferno. It blazed up and promised destruction for anything that got between us. She was mine. Even if I had to steal her.

I followed the movement of his fingertips, the slight pressure he exerted on her. A vision of him with a knife protruding from his neck made me smile.

She was made for me, just as I’d been fashioned from the darkest materials for her. Her light would temper my shadow.

I had no shame. Playing with my food and watching it bleed before I devoured it was nothing new.

The fear that welled in her was sweeter than anything I’d ever tasted. It filled me, reminded me why I needed her. She made me feel, gave me life. I wanted to take every sensation from her, sample each one until I’d gorged myself on emotion.

“Guilty.” I leaned forward and licked the sadness from her, the salty taste a tease on my tongue. “You’re even beautiful when you cry.”

“You’re a monster.” “I know.”

Maybe he was just punking me. Maybe Ashton Kutcher was going to jump out from behind the curtains with a film crew, and we’d all laugh about it over breakfast.

LMFAOOO

Another jump in her pulse. Fuck, even her blood turned me on.

“Where you’re concerned, I’ll be as creepy as necessary to make you happy.”

“I won the moment I found you.”

I recognized a piece of myself inside her, and thankfully, it was a piece with darkened edges.

“Let me guess.” She swiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “You need to return some videotapes?”

LMFAO

“She makes me feel.” I pointed at Dad. “Your tears, they should make me sad, right? They don’t. I see you upset and I think ‘I don’t want you to be unhappy’ but I don’t feel your sadness. But her”—I leaned forward, as if proximity might make my dad understand—“when she cries, when she laughs; I feel it in here.” I tapped my chest over my heart. “I’ve never had that, never experienced anything like it. I can’t let that go. Don’t you see?”

“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.” He smiled, true delight lighting his angular features. “Now put your hands on me.”

“Psycho.” I kissed her hair again and relaxed into my pillow. “Your psycho.”

“You can’t hide yourself from me. I’m the only one who’s ever seen you.”

“If I said I wanted the moon, do you think he’d get it for me?” “I daresay he’d try.”

You had a white knight, but you were waiting for your monster. Here I am.”

The sun doesn’t reduce its heat to assuage the frigid moon.” “How do you do it?” He cocked his head to the side. “What?” “Say things like that? Pure poetry from someone who never feels.” “It’s you.” He leaned closer and slid his hand higher on my thigh. “You’re the reason. I can assure you I’ve never said a poetic word in my life until I met you.”

As my father cried, I filed away his behavior in my notebook of human reactions: nothing good comes of silence.

“I want to know you. All your secrets—I want to keep them. You can tell me anything, and I wouldn’t judge you. Had an unhealthy obsession with One Direction? Fine. Slutted it up senior year to get back at mommy? No problem, though admittedly that wouldn’t be my favorite. Fifty bodies in the back yard? I don’t give a shit.”

Her laughter infected me, and I smiled at the mental image.

Loved. That deep feeling, the one that shot fear and excitement through me in equal measures, roared back to life. And there was nothing else to it. Not really. The simple truth had been there all along. I loved Camille.

She made me feel, but the problem inherent in that is that she made me afraid of the hurt I’d suffer if she left. Losing her would be a mortal blow.

Without her, I would die.

“What do you need? I’ll give it to you.” He squeezed my ass. “Name it.”

“If any of it made you happy, even for a moment, it was worth it.”

I replayed the months since I’d first seen Camille, analyzing each moment, trying to find at what exact moment I’d failed. The frozen air burned my lungs, and I couldn’t feel my face. But any pain my flesh endured was nothing compared to the torment that ripped and raged inside me.

He felt. And, in turn, I felt for him.

I’d been here for almost a day, but I hadn’t realized it. All I could think of was her, the blue of her eyes, the softness of her skin, the cute way her nose would wrinkle, the sounds she made when she came. I could drown myself in good bourbon and thoughts of her for the rest of my life. It would be more fulfilling than trying to function without her.

“How is it that I, a fucking psychopath, feel more for her than she feels for me?”

Everything reminded me of her. A book still open on the table where she’d left it next to her journal, her fleeting scent in the air, the chair she favored. Every detail built on the last. She was everywhere and nowhere.

I clenched my eyes shut. She appeared behind my lids, her eyes glittering as she laughed and turned to run. I chased her. Would never stop chasing her.

Know that what love I have is yours. It always will be.

“Let’s just say that she’s going to keep running, but she’s fine with letting me catch her every so often.”

“She ran, but I caught her. I’ll always catch her.” The new sensation, the one that sent me flying, swelled in my chest. She’d put it there. All the love I had was hers.

Our souls melded and once again danced in the dark…and the light.