Bad Wrong Things

by C.P. Harris

Clint and I were like hot oil kissing water. Gasoline crooking its finger at an open flame. We came together like animals in heat, marking and pissing over our territory. And love had everything, yet nothing, to do with it.

“Are you afraid of what I may do, or what you may do?”

No never stopped us. Especially not after we’d decided that turning ourselves into monsters would be the only way to cope with the pain. To be more deserving of it.

If Clint couldn’t grow old and gray with me, then I wanted him to do it alone.

“I don’t think a relationship is in the cards for me, Clint.” “Why not?” “My heart’s already spoken for,”

he’d never truly see me because there’d always be a part of me hidden from him. The part that wanted us writhing in the pit of our ugly because I wanted him too much to ever settle for something as superficial as pleasant with him.

“What-if can’t coexist with right now, Raven.” Those words would come back to haunt us both.

“Do not pick me up,” I cautioned with my hands outstretched. “Not unless you plan on fucking me against a wall.”

I’m addicted to him. To his companionship, his easy smiles, and his godforsaken filthy mouth.

“You being territorial over me feeds my need to be loved or some shit.” “Is that with everyone or just me?” I leaned my hip into the counter. “Just you. Fuck everyone else.”

I was shamefaced and angry at myself for wanting you. Pissed because you being with a man is wrong, if that man isn’t me. Jealous because the only set of hands that should be setting your body on fire are mine.”

“My head wants its cozy spot back in the sand. I want to know what I did, the second I did it, to make your feelings toward me change. I want to say I’m sorry for it. And I want… I want you, Raven.” “Then have me,”

He smelled of nicotine and bubblegum. Sin and innocence. The combination of wanting to tear him apart and hold him together made me stir-crazy.

“I fucking love you, Clint. And if you’re brave enough to let me show you, I promise I’ll never stop.”

“The mouth and the heart are connected. That’s why words hurt. I’d never give either to anyone but you.”

I know what you need, and I plan on giving it to you, Clint. I plan on showing you that taking what you want could never be a bad thing. Not when it comes to me.”

“When did your feelings change?”

“When the best part of my day became returning home. When I realized home was wherever you were.”

“When the curve of your neck stopped being just the curve of your neck. When it became a place I wanted to bury my troubles away in. A place I hungered to breathe from. When the sun in my eyes stopped being a simple annoyance, but a plot of the universe to keep me from gazing at you. When seeing you do what you love stopped only being an inspiration of pride, but also an inspiration for my attraction.”

Clint made me want to learn how to be loved, not taken—but I wanted to be taken too, so much.

“All those nights I spent falling deeper, believing you were plummeting right behind me, and in ten days, that’s all wiped away. You’re left standing, and I’m fucking descending without a foothold in sight.”

I wanted him to take and take until I was a tiny, invisible speck because he’d inhaled every drop of me. I wanted him to fucking shackle and vanquish and own me. I wanted him that far gone. I wanted him strapped to the seat next to me. I wanted him to come into the dark.

I loved you first. I wanted you first. I went insane first.

I didn’t want to be fixed, I wanted to be loved for my brokenness.

He took over every cell, making it so they wouldn’t function the same without him. He fed my heart, my ambitions, my body, and my twisted fantasies. He knew when to give, when to take, and when to take more. He held court in my corner. He was the light in my darkness, and the forever in my forever-and-ever. Nothing good had happened to me before meeting Clint. Not even being born.

I would fucking love him indefinitely.

“Bad things happen to me sometimes, and good things are taken away because of it. I just don’t know if you’re the good thing taken, or the bad-wrong-thing that’s happened to me.”

“I’m so angry I can’t see straight. I don’t want to love you anymore, and I’m trying not to hate you for it.”

“I wanted under your skin.” And the more he let me, the deeper I wanted to go. “But getting under your skin meant getting under your demons, too. I wanted you lawless. I wanted to know what your hell felt like. I wanted everything.”

“This isn’t love, Clint.” I cried for all three of us, weeping all over him. “Not anymore.” “Then what is it?” he mouthed more than spoke. “Poison.” The low dose, slow-killing kind, and we’d reached the death end of it.

“Our love was ours to do with as we saw fit. We didn’t need our jagged edges smoothed. We didn’t need to be unbent. I just needed to be brave enough to be broken,” he whispered, chipping away at my resolve. “Brave enough to love you through my brokenness.”

Clint was my map, my compass, my way out of the dark. I’d learned that I could live without him, but that I didn’t want to, and I no longer had to. I’d love this man forever, until the end and beyond. To the grave.

Your love no longer breaks or makes me. I make me. But you fucking make me better.”