Does It Hurt?

by H.D. Carlton

“Ma solo quando sono pronto a venire con te. Annegheremo insieme, bella ladra.”

I want to return that look with a smile that says Never let me go. I’ll die with your hands wrapped around my throat. Wow. That’s fucked up. I need to find a therapist when I get home.

“You’re in pain,” he states bluntly. I give him a side-eye. “Yeah, and?” His eyes drop to the floor, like he’s considering punching the inanimate rock for daring to throw my back out of place. Ultimately, he grabs the blanket and shotgun, then lifts his eyes and says, “I’ll take care of that later. Let’s go, baby.”

“Can’t I just go with you? Haven’t you seen the horror movies? Separating is never a good idea. And I’m in more danger of getting shot if you’re not here.”

“Ghost. Knocking. Scary. Get the water police.”

“It’s okay. It can’t hurt you.” “I’m pretty sure that’s not true. Have you ever seen The Conjuring? Or literally any other paranormal horror movie? They definitely get hurt. People die. Demons are like, serial killers, Enzo.”

“Good point,” he concedes. “If I need to fight a ghost, I will. Just lay back down for now.”

There’s a shark in the water, and just like being in the ocean, we’re in his territory.

I’m not going to stand there and argue about a ghost defying the laws of physics. I’d rather spend my time gurgling caffeine like I’m a porn star surrounded by five dicks.

Dust motes dance in the sunbeams, and I flap my hand at them as if that’s going to accomplish anything. I’ve always been weirded out by the sight of dirt in the air. It’s a rude reminder that I’m inhaling some gross shit on a daily basis.

If I don’t get to sleep, the dead don’t get to, either.

“Because it pisses me off that I want you as badly as I do,”

can’t stand to look at you. Not because I don’t like what I see, Sawyer. It’s because I fucking hate how it makes me feel.”

What I’ve gone through—what I’ve done—it’s no excuse for how I’ve chosen to survive. I’ve placed that on others’ shoulders and made strangers responsible for keeping me safe.

He possesses something to be worshiped.

“Mostrami come amarti,”

already feel like my soul is only holding on to its vessel purely out of pity.

“There’s a place in the ocean, so deep, where not a single point of light penetrates through it. And for so long, I’ve been trapped there, unable to breathe. When I met you, you lifted me out of that darkness, and it was the first time I came up for air. You’ve become my oxygen, bella ladra, and I can no longer breathe without you.”

“Being loved by me will hurt like hell. It’s everything you deserve.” Then, he declares passionately, “I love you, and you will love me.”

He parades as a savior—a protector—but the only thing that uniform represents is my inability to stop him from hurting me.

I spare him a glance, noting the fury that flashes across his eyes—a rage so deep, it’s something he could only be born with. I was being crafted in my mother's stomach alongside a monster. It’s in his very DNA. Sometimes, it scares me that it’s in mine, too.

He's staring directly into my eyes, and I can see the betrayal radiating from them. You can only betray someone if they trusted you. He should've never trusted me.

“We’ve known nothing but heartbreak. Maybe we can show each other something different this time, yeah?”

Sapevo che lo stronzo stava mentendo.

My hands are curling into his t-shirt, clinging to him with fright. For so long, I’ve only ever felt that for myself, and this… this feels so much worse. Whoever created the word goodbye never knew loss. There’s nothing good about the way he leaves me.

“I’ve faced predators far more powerful than he will ever be. And now he will face me,” he

Guess I can’t even be angry. The universe is definitely getting its karma right now, and well, I can’t really fucking blame it.

I'm not staying up here fighting with a half-dead girl that's clearly not as docile as she seemed to be.

And for the second time in my life, I’m asking myself yet again—do you want to survive? Or do you want to waste away? But what is surviving without living, and what is death without pain? It’s an empty, cracked shell where a soul has been born and where that soul will die.

“You look beautiful painted in his blood. È il colore che preferisco su di te.”

Love is funny that way. It persists even when you’ve done everything in your power to banish it. It demands its own voice and refuses to be a slave to anyone but its own desires. And despite the power of it, those selfish desires are what make love so weak.

It’s accepting the apologies of a cheating lover.

It’s returning to a raised hand, over and over, until that hand becomes lethal, and ...

It’s clinging to a mother who never wanted you and hoping she will one day show u...

It’s grabbing ahold of a hand that belongs to both a father and an abuser, wailing ...

It’s falling in love with a liar, a thief, and praying they n...

“Sei così dolce. Sei un angelo,”

“Do you think I have what it takes to kill a man now?”

Is he looking for God between the cracks of the wood, hoping he’ll see a glimpse? One tiny look into what he could’ve had before committing his heinous crimes.

And those sad little fucking sapphires are exactly why love is so weak. One look from them, and I’m crumbling.

“No one is capable of making you suffer more than me.”

“You’re not fucking leaving me, Sawyer. You’re not going to jail. You’re not going anywhere. You want to pay for your crimes? Good. I’m more than happy to make you pay. And if you think for one goddamn second that I’m letting you go, then I look forward to showing you just how trapped you are with me. “There are many things you deserve, bella ladra, but the only prison you will be a captive in is one of my own making. If my love is a prison, so be it.”

“The day you stole from me was the best day of my life,”

“Because then you became my life, and I don’t want it back. I won’t fucking take it.”

“If you want to live free for the rest of your life, then you need to kill Sawyer Bennett.”

“I would lie for you as easily as I would kill for you. If you getting the best of me requires the world getting the worst of me, you will want for nothing in life, bella ladra.”

That’s not how normal people kill.” He cocks a brow. “First off, there is no such thing as a normal killer.

It feels like forever ago when I was sitting on a beach, smoking a cigarette and wishing for death with a man I never learned the name of. Now here I am, once more sitting on a beach, but no longer wanting anything to do with cigarettes, and behind me is a man I’ll never forget.

Despite all that, I still have the same conclusion. Death—cancer—it all tastes like shit.

This won’t be the first time I’ve had to pretend to be someone I’m not. But this just might be the last.