A man.
A husband.
And…
A father.
Not a killer anymore. How do I escape the monster and be the hero that she needs?”
It’s a loaded question, and I chew on it for what feels like hours, when in reality, it's merely a few intense minutes.
“You can’t be something that the dead seek, 81. Living with ghosts is just what it is - ghosts. Living with the living will always seem harder. This is why we are here where we are right now. Your brain is catching up to your heart.” I move my hands slowly over his scared, rippled body.
“It’s like anything, when it’s love we seek, we are blind to the truths.”
I can feel his body struggle with emotions, his chest stained with the wet, silver streaks of his tears.
“It’s unlike anything else we ever experience. It’s like the bloodlust you seek, it makes us feel so fucking alive. That we will always seek a new way to keep that high as intense as the first time we breathed it in, tasted it, had it wreaked havoc on our bodies. Its magic, but you know sometimes it’s a black magic that lies to us. Makes us believe that we have to be addicted to it and weaning from it can near kill us. But we can make it through given the right time, person, place, “I speak softly into his hair as he nuzzles into the crook of my neck.
“I had to really fall apart and hit the deepest of darkest holes before I realized that I would never be enough for a narcissist. He always told me that it was my fault, that I was the problem. I was ugly, I made him do what he did, I did that. But you know what? No, I didn’t. I would do anything but that! And never to myself or someone that I loved.”
“I sold my soul to a devil in the form of a whore, Jade. Can you handle that type of dark?”
“Handle it, yes. Take it, yes. Own it, yes. You know why I’d do anything for you. Dark, this type of dark, mine and yours doesn’t scare me. 81,” I say lowering my hand down to his chin so I could raise his eyes to meet mine.
“They are just scars, 81. That’s all they are, but you keep making them live by reliving the dark that caused them to bleed. I won’t let you relive them. I will let them settle into your skin and just live upon your skin like art on a canvas. Do not cover them, let them bleed. But don’t use them to hide inside the walls of a mind that isn’t a rehab. Because, baby boy, you are stronger than that shit.”
He shakes his head against me, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my body. I let him hide, I don’t flinch, nor do I waver. I let him inflict the small gesture of pain on me.
“I hate everything about me. Everything about her. So tell me, little bird, why do I still love her?” he hisses, his grip fighting itself. I will have small purple, flower-like bruises on my skin come morning light. That should scare me, but my body knows that these bruises are different than the ones that used to cover my milky-white skin wrapped around my broken skeleton.
“Because we are humans, and we all love things that are dangerous for us.”
“I am the master of death, a lover of dust and a dreamer of ashes. Where my dark fucked-up life meets an angel with the devil in her eyes but forever have, I enclosed a different habit inside my mind,” he whispers as I trace my fingers over the intricate lines of bright colored ink that is covering his body.
“They say you have to meet the devil before you know how to stare at death and live through it. And you know what, 81? I feel that each and every time you look at me. You’re death but in a good way. You’re like a drug that I can be addicted to, in a good way. Each time you breathe on me, I feel like I won’t survive another moment. Each time you run your fingers over my body or push a lock of hair from my face, I feel like really feel. It is like walking on air. Nothing can touch me when you're nearby. The dark doesn’t seep in. The demons don’t beg to be unleashed. When you look into my eyes, you see past the amber eyes and you see my soul complete with all its cracks.” My body stills as he traces his shaking finger over the jagged, raised scar that snakes from my temple up to the top of my skull on the right-hand side of my face. This small act hurts me more than it did the day that Carl dug his knife in and ripped my flesh open with such malice and hate.
I can feel him begin to blame himself for an act another did to me. Not his hands, his hands didn’t do this.
“You can’t blame yourself for this. You didn’t know I existed.” My lips fall to his temple placing small fleeting kisses over it in an attempt to quieten the monster pacing inside of him.
“You know sometimes surviving is the worst kind of pain.”
I breathe over his temple as his hand fans over the arch of my back where my spine meets my ass.
“You notice it all don’t you, little bird?” he whispers slowly into my skin. Exhaustion of always trying to stay ahead of the ghosts haunting him evident in his tone. I allow him to fall into what will be a troubled sleep, wrapped up in my body. We are somewhere far away from the city that taunts him, even here in these night-time moments.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jade
Sunlight streams through the huge windows with a stunning warmth that lifts my spirits. The windows also open the cabin up to the beautiful world out there, making this a sanctuary comes with such a brilliant brightness of a fresh new morning light.
The chorus of the bird’s drifts in like steady ocean waves, only their melody is dancing. In a moment, the tune can fly so high and resettle, an auditory version of how they play upon their wings. I move toward it, feeling the light reach my skin and my eyes adjust to its brilliance. I reach out with my hand and lean on the white gloss frame, noticing the subtle pattern on the glass of raindrops that came during the night and have since dried.
I quietly open the door and step out onto the slightly damp deck, which is cool under my bare feet. My eyes fall onto the shimmering rays over the placid lake, bestowing a golden path from the shore to the horizon. Blinking toward the sun that brought me another day that was never promised, yet I was so glad to see, I take in a cleansing breath and let the moment sink in. It soothes me from the core right out to where the nascent rays touched my skin. This meant a new beginning is possible, and possibilities mean hope. The omissions from last night still haunt me, stinging my skin. I can’t run from my past and neither can 81. We both need to find a way to live with it before it destroys us both. I know how to end my torture and that’s telling 81 exactly that I will end Carl. Myself.
81 needs to find a way to empty the ghost from his closet and clear his mind. We can’t hold onto faded memories and broken promises hoping that they will heal. We can make up for the pain they caused though.
