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Anything in excess is a poison. —Theodore Levitt
My love for her was a disease, and disease knows no boundaries. It knows no laws and no repentance. It doesn’t care who belongs to who; it’ll sever branches from a family tree without thought.
Scientia potentia est. Knowledge is power.
“You can repay me by not strangling me again.” Whoops. I almost forgot I did that. That whole night is a tangled mess of memory and hallucination. “It was an accident.” He raises an eyebrow. “An accident?” “Tripped and fell onto your neck. That’s how I remember it anyway.”
“You look beautiful.” He says it so simply, like it’s not an opinion but a fact; not up for debate.
Wrath bubbles up to my throat, sour and bitter. There it is; the disappointment, the expectation that trauma has to turn into an inspirational story. That a life changing injury should end in a Paralympic gold and an awful childhood should fuel your meteoric rise to success. Just surviving is achievement enough.
“You raise my blood pressure.” “How?” His eyes drop to my lips for the smallest of moments. “That backless dress from last night, for a start.”
🫠🫠🫠🫠
“You’re too good a woman for a man like him.” “And you’d be better?” A dark chuckle vibrates in his throat. “Ophelia, love, I’d be significantly worse. But I can’t watch you with him.” Somehow, we’ve ended up closer, my hands against his chest to keep a precious gap between us. “Then look away.” He looks at me like I’ve asked him to pluck the moon from the sky and bottle it for me. “Can’t.”
I don’t even bother trying to look away. I drink in every minute detail like I’m dying and she’s the cure.
I’m obsessed with her. Desperate for her. But I could never be good for her, and for reasons she doesn’t make clear, she doesn’t want me to love her.
A small smile graces her pinkening lips, and my god, it’s a smile that’s going to ruin my life. It’s a smile I’ll replay in my head each night as I lie in that blissful space between awake and asleep.
Ophelia feels like finding another human after months in the desert. A light permeating the thick black cloud. When my wayward mind wanders, it staggers back home to her. She’s everything I’ve been asking the universe for, and she fucking hates me.
“Tell me you missed me.” I look back up at him, at the hunger in his gaze. “I’d rather choke you.” His eyes smolder, lips part. “You could’ve told me that was an option.”
“I can’t stay away from you, Ophelia. I’ve never pretended I can.”
Someone making you happy is one thing, but seeing the demons in someone’s eyes go quiet when they look at you? It’s something else entirely.
🥺🥺🥺
At some point in the last two months, he’s become the closest sensation I have to a home. He calls me beautiful as if it were my name, touches me as if it keeps him alive, kisses me like he wants to brand himself on me forever.
Forget dying for her. I’d live for her. I feel like I could overcome all the darkness inside if only it meant I’d get a life in her company in return.
I love every piece of you, especially the parts that you’ve convinced yourself aren’t worthy of my love.”
🥺🥺🖤🖤🖤
“Let’s go home,” he whispers. “Home?” Each gentle kiss on my hair mends another crack in my heart. “Wherever you want, love. It’s home if we’re there.”
😩🫠🖤
