Sparrow

by L.J. Shen

The sparrow is associated with freedom. At one time, sailors got a tattoo of a sparrow for every five thousand nautical miles they traveled. Sparrows were believed to bring good luck. Sometimes the sailor got his sparrow tattoo even before leaving the docks, hoping it would act as a talisman and help bring him safely home again.

Nonetheless, to me, it was as pointless as Henry Cavill with a shirt on. So much detail and beauty shouldn’t be wasted on fraud. And that’s what Brennan and I were—a lie. A charade. Doomed people trapped in a marriage built on the ruins of extortion and lies.

“You know, Sparrow? Maybe we could play together after all. There’s some fun hiding underneath your layers of goodness.”

Fear is a prison, and in prison you played by different rules to survive.

I kissed him because I wanted something from him. A job. A chance at happiness. Some freedom.

He was a cheater. A criminal. A murderer. And I was…fascinated.

Guilt was a thief. It would steal your mind, mess with your priorities and would eventually steer you from your original plan. I couldn’t allow it any room in the life, so I pushed it aside, convincing myself that on some level, these moments we shared weren’t lies. Just half-truths.

Sparrow into the car. She was still laughing like a drunk. Secretly, I had to admit, her laugh was not that horrible to listen to. That should have been my first warning that Sparrow wasn’t the only one cracking up. Her laugh was not that horrible to listen to. At all.

I think I might have loved him in that particular moment. Just for a second. For listening. For being there. For not being terrible for once, even though it was in his DNA. In his nature.

There was one thing he was right about, though. Regardless of what I thought about him as a person, I craved him like a crackhead.

Troy Brennan was the devil, but sometimes, even good girls wanted a healthy dose of evil in their lives.

“Come near my wife again,” I said, “and I’ll show the world just how much of an angry motherfucker I can really be when someone touches what’s mine.”

And with that, I knew there would be no more mistresses in the immediate future. For the first time since we got together, I’d won. And victory never felt so sweet.

“Nobody fucks with what’s mine. Even my late dad’s friend. Upstairs,” he demanded sharply. “Now.”

My love for Troy Brennan wasn’t romantic or sweet—it was violent and needy. It was a cancer, spreading inside my body, multiplying into hundreds and thousands of new cells with every beat of my heart. No chemotherapy, no miracle cure. Every heartbeat, I slipped a little more. Drowned a little deeper. Fell a little further into the bottomless ocean of feelings for him.

“Is it possible to feel your heart breaking, even when you’re falling in love?”

My monster, my capturer, my corrupter. My lover.

beautiful. He gave me lies, and I ate them from the palm of his hand. He gave me lies, and for him, I closed my eyes.

And it was also the moment I knew that I would burn down the city and stop at nothing to find my wife. Not because she was mine, I never believed that for a second, anyway. Because I was so busy telling Sparrow how much she wanted me, I forgot a small little detail—I wanted her back. More.

She was my beauty, and I was her beast. But this was not a Disney flick. In real life, the beast goes back to his solitary life, a freak who lurks in the shadows and watches as his girl runs away back to the arms of her family.

Real love doesn’t disappear. It can turn into hate, and hate can turn into love, but those feelings won’t ever turn into indifference.”

That was the second time my fake husband, who forced me to marry him, walked out on me. It was also the second time he took my heart with him. But it was the first time I realized that I would never have it back. He owned it, clutched it in his iron fist. And sometimes, I knew, he squeezed too hard.

I watched you because I wanted you for myself, because you belong with me.

“I love you, Red. I love you determined, tough, innocent, resilient…” His brows furrowed as he drank me in, stroking the curve of my face with his calloused fingertips. “I love you broken, insecure, scared, furious and pissed off…” He let a small smile loose. I actually felt it, even though it was on his lips. “I love every part of you, the good and the bad, the hopeless and the assertive. We don’t just love. We heal each other with every touch and complete each other with every kiss. And fuck, I know it’s corny as hell, but that’s what I need. You’re what I need.”

My capturer. My monster. My savior. “I’m an asshole,

I was his, he was mine, and everything else we did and didn’t do to each other was just that. Our past.

“Now, my lovebird, you’re my home.”