I hate her.
I—
I closed my eyes, her sound penetrating the abyss of my rotten soul. I’d recognize her playing anywhere. It was unique, inhabited, dramatic—so warm, like the dark color of ebony. Its touch was very profound, almost alto. Her music always calmed the beast inside me.Her fucking music.Only hers.
She took me into her world. A better world. A beautiful world.
The door creaked on the floor when I pushed it open, but she was too possessed to notice me, her music mirroring the turbulent rhythm of my own heartbeat. It was as if she had summoned the forces of heaven and hell to gather by her side.
Her darkness called out to mine, and when I gunned my eyes to the object of my hatred, a shared abyss reflected in her eyes. I could hear her pain, her anger, her defiance. I couldfeelit.
And she was giving it all to me.
I was the sole listener.
It was only her and me in this macabre dance.
It’s beautiful. Peaceful.
My own feelings repulsed me. I always loathed how she made me feel. Of all the music in the world, why did it have to be only hers that created these fucking goose bumps on my skin?
I should snatch her violin, pin her against the wall, and drive into her as she chanted my name. I’d take every inch of her innocence. Every fiber of my being yearned to corrupt her, to shatter the illusion of the good, weak girl her father believed her to be. I wanted to return her as my own creation, a hellion I alone could appreciate. I wanted to kiss her so hard it’d bruise her lips. Take and not give her an ounce of me. I should take everything.
Everything.
“It’s you,” she whispered, the last music note faltering.
I took a step back, hiding in the darkest corners.
“I know you’re here.”
“Continue,” my voice almost begged her.
“Why?” Her voice defied me.
I clenched my jaw, shutting my lips close in one hard line. “I could make you.”
“It’s not enough,” she said. “Now, leave, Levi.”
“It eases the pain,” I dropped, knowing this was why she was playing too. Not to hear the voice of the silence. Especially atnight. That was where the ghosts of your past came to haunt you. “I’ll leave you alone for two days if you play for two minutes.”
Just two more minutes.
The slightest smile curled her lips. “Fine.”
She drew her bow on the strings, and I sat on the floor, throwing my head on the wall outside the music room. I’d never stood in the same room as her as she played, and it felt like the closer I got, the more I was going to destroy the melody and take away its beauty.
My demons went quiet. Time stood still, and the memory I’d buried with the rest of my childhood resurfaced. The day she left the door of the music room open. I remembered that pathetic kid sitting on the stairs, begging to see what was so special about her for my mother to care. The moment I heard her first note, I was done for.
It had hit me right in the chest, like a fucking arrow. This pathetic kid was entranced by her siren song, and goose bumps ravaged his body. That kid had never felt something so raw, beautiful, and pure before. It made him almost believe people could be good. That the world wasn’t so bad.
That he could snatch what he imagined love could feel like for himself.
That he, too, could be loved.
He was wrong.
There was no such thing as hope and love. The scars on his arms, and his heart, so black and ruined, roughly sewn back together so that it could barely function, would disgust any human.
