Inevitable Destruction

by Marie Ann

How do you kill someone without actually killing them? You give them what they need to do it themselves.

There’s something about lightning I resonate deeply with. The way it strikes fast, deadly, and bright. It’s fascinating how something so… beautiful can be so destructive. I guess there’s a certain beauty in destruction. How could there not be?

“You made me need you, you know.” His words catch me off guard, and I still. Our eyes remain locked as my brain freezes, attempting to process his words. He’s right—I did. But the way he said that…

And as bitter as the truth sits on my tongue in this very moment, I have to admit I let it happen. I could’ve just quit. I could have stayed away and got fucking sober. Hell, I could’ve gone back to rehab. The option was—is—there, but I don’t fucking want it. I want this. I crave the drugs. The high, the numbness. I need it all, and I want Rhett to be the one to give it to me. I’m the master of my own destruction.

“You were already so broken,” I mumble absentmindedly as I trace my index finger down his throat to his clavicle and drag it along the bone there. “And now I’ve made you into the perfect plaything. Mine to exploit, to fuck, to kill…”

“I’m trying, Pops.” The words tumble from my lips. “You deserve revenge the only way you can get it, but it—” Another choked noise. “It’s changing me. I don’t like who I am. This… I’m lost. Questioning everything, including myself for the first time, and it hurts.” “I’m betraying you.” This part hurts worst of all, but I just have to say the words—just once so they’re out there, and I never have to think them again. “Dominik Reed. He’s… fuck. He’s more. I—” No more words come out. I force myself to stop before I can hurt both of us even further.

“I’m going to hell for this.” His thumb brushes my aching pulse hammering away in my throat. “I’ll meet you there,” I croak out just before his lips slam onto mine. He’s brutal and demanding, taking everything from me—including my breath and my fucking sanity. I don’t know who I become when he controls me like this, when he makes me this pliant, needy, uncontrollable mess. I don’t even recognize myself anymore. Though, I’m not sure I can say I ever did.

“He never wanted me,” I croak. “I was used, again.” My voice cracks, and I wince at how pathetic I sound, but I’m unable to stop the words cascading off my tongue. “I’m not worth anything to anyone. Just a means to an end—or f-for fucking re-revenge.” I’m unhinged with hiccups and sobs fueled solely by unrequited love. “Oh-oh, God. Fuck, I lo-love him.”

I don’t know what to do other than tighten my arms around him and keep my weight pressed down, blanketing every inch of him I can reach. But if anything, it makes it worse. Hopelessness spirals. Grieving unfolds. Guilt multiplies. His wet, retched sobs absorb into me through our connected flesh. My heart constricts, squeezing tighter and tighter as the seconds tick by, bringing me closer to a death I never realized I was plummeting towards. “I hate that I love you, that you made me fucking need you.”

I drive and drive until the car rolls to a stop at the same time my body gives out on me. Finally giving me the nothing I’ve been craving for so long. The nothing I didn’t think I deserved—but maybe that’s the point of being a harbinger of destruction: once the chaos of your destiny is complete, you get to fade into the night one final time.

“I’m a fucking snake,” I tell her, the words tumbling from my drunken lips unbidden. “A snake?” she asks, her voice conveying her confusion. “Yeah. I sunk my fangs so deep into him, he had no choice but to let me drag him every which way until I had him where I wanted him. And fuck, did I want him.” I choke on my words, wetness smearing across my face and dripping down my beard and onto my bloody, split open knuckles, the salt adding to the sting. “I coiled myself so tightly around him, neither of us could breathe without the other. But of course, once that happened, I couldn’t fucking find my way back. Up became down, wrong became right. “He… he fucking became right—and he can’t be. Not when he’s so wrong, when all of this is so fucking wrong!”

There’s too much pain between us, too much loss, and regret. But right now, no words are spoken as we bask in the temporary, blissful silence—neither one of us willing to burst it. My hand rubs up and down the notches of his spine as his lips brush back and forth over my tattooed skin. We both need this from the other. It’s not healing, but it’s necessary.