Take Me With You

by Nina G. Jones

A house provides the facade of protection. It's a sacred place, separating you from the beasts that lurk outside. But that's all it is: a facade. The reason your home is safe is because no one has wanted in yet. But if you are so unlucky, nothing can stop a monster from breaching those walls.

That's the thing about keeping a person alive. In a way you are just as much a hostage to them as they are to you.

I thought being loved was the most gratifying feeling. No, it's being obsessed over. It's having someone so infatuated with you that they would risk everything to have you. That is a high that love can't touch. Love is a slow burn, a stockpot simmering to soften the heart. But this—this is a flash flood, it's the smoke billowing when a steak hits a hot pan. It's threatening, but its fierceness is the very thing love dilutes.

It's the most thrilling thing to be told you are precious. That you are so valuable it puts you in danger. Nothing of such high regard can exist in this world without causing a storm. When a man covets something so strongly, he is its greatest threat.

we are both hopelessly bound to the other, holding each other afloat. And if one of us snaps the line or sinks, the other will drown.

You don't stare the devil in the eyes and come out without some of his sin. You can't beat the devil without becoming like him. You can't appeal to his kindness, so you have to learn to play his games. You lie, you fuck, you manipulate, you fight, you hurl insults, until you do whatever it takes to win the battle. Every time you do those things, you understand him a little more. Until finally, he becomes your ally. You think you've won, that you've made him more like you. But the truth is, it's the other way around. So that even when you win, you've lost.