Take Me With You

by Nina G. Jones

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.

Girls like her don't want the beast. They want the idea of one. They want to be safe and still revel in the thrill. But there's no safety with a monster. Because monsters consume. They take your body, your soul, and your innocence.

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.

“Who am I?” he asks in that voice, dirty and broken. “I am the person who has nothing to lose but you.”

“I am a man who has risked everything to have you.” He pulls out slowly and plunges into me again. “You are the only thing, Vesp.” He draws himself out and buries himself inside of me. “And you…are my obsession.” His obsession. Wanted. Needed. Craved. The most important person in his world. It's what I felt when his eyes first met mine. 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.

I don't know if there is a world between that cabin and Sacramento. But I do know one thing: 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.