I don't even know how to receive love, let alone return it. So I do the only thing I've ever been good at, the only thing I understand: I destroy.
"You're wrong," I say, my voice a whisper. "You don't love me, Brielle."
She flinches like I hit her, but she stands her ground. "I'm not. I love you."
I want to run. I want to slam my own head through the goddamn wall, just to stop myself from saying what has to come next. But my mouth works anyway, the words clicking into place like a prison lock.
"You think this is love?" I say, louder now. "You think any of this is real?"
"It is," she says defiantly, her head held high. "You're just too broken to let yourself admit that you feel the same way. Well, guess what? I don't care. I love you anyway."
I force a bitter laugh. "You should have learned by now—I can't be fixed. I'm not the fucking hero in your story, princess. I'm the monster who buys you and ruins you, just because he can."
She stands there, shaking, her hands curled into fists at her sides. "I never wanted to fix you," she says. "I just wanted you."
"You never had me, not really. You were just something to own. A distraction." My throat is so tight, I nearly choke on the lies as they spill out. "I didn't pay you to love me. I paid you to obey. I wanted your body, not your heart."
She blinks, stunned by the cold cruelty I'm pouring into her. Hope bleeds from her eyes, leaving a void, and I want to fucking scream the world down around us. Maybe then I'll be able to forget the way she's looking at me right now. Maybe then I'll be able to take back every fucked-up, awful thing I ever did to her.
But I don't scream, and I don't take it back. I have to finish it. If I don't, I'll pull her into my arms and beg for forgiveness. I'll fuck her on the floor and whisper the truth in her ear. And I'll destroy her from the inside out, piece by piece, until there's nothing left of her at all. There won't be anything left of me then, either.
When she dies, I do. It's my only goddamn comfort in the world…the fact that I don't have to survive losing her.
I step forward, close enough to see the pulse pounding at the base of her throat.
"You want something real?" I ask, the words soft and savage at the same time. "Then get on your knees. Crawl to me. That's real, Brielle. The way you let me fuck and break you is the only real thing between us. It's the only real thing that's ever been between us."
Her jaw locks, her nostrils flare, but she doesn't move. Maybe she thinks I'll back down, that this is just another round of the same old game. But I don't blink. I don't even breathe.
"That isn't what you really want," she finally says.
"If you believe that, then there's no saving you," I snap, each syllable a nail in my coffin. "You think I told you I didn't love you the night of the accident for the hell of it? You're smarter than that, Brielle. I said it because it was the truth. It's still true. You really should have listened to Andrews when he tried to warn you. Monsters don't love. We own. We break."
She flinches, curling in on herself slightly, and I see the doubt in her eyes, the same doubt I saw the night of the accident. She believes me, just like she did back then.
"You don't mean that," she whispers, her voice shaking.
"Yeah, I do. All I ever wanted from you was you on your knees, so do it," I growl. "Earn your fucking money. Crawl to me."
She swallows. Her chin trembles. But after a second—just one—she drops. First to her knees, and then to her palms, curled in on herself like she knows the end is coming, but she isn't willing to run from it anymore.
She starts crawling, every move a fucking dagger in my heart. Her head is bowed, her hair a black curtain around her face, but I see the way her whole body shakes. I see the wetness already sliding down her cheeks, the stains on the floor where her tears land.
With every inch she closes between us, I die a little more. She doesn't belong on her knees. She never has.
When she's within arm's reach, I stare at her, trying to memorize the exact moment when she gives up hope for good. Her mascara leaves tracks down her face. Her mouth is twisted, torn between a snarl and a sob.
She's never been so beautiful, and I've never hated myself more.
I want to say something, anything, to soften the blow. I want to take her hands, haul her up, and kiss her until she remembers why she loved me in the first place.
But if I do, I'll kill us both. She deserves someone who can give her soft and sweet and everything I'll never be, someone who doesn't have her blood on his hands. Someone who hasn't spent years trying to break her just so he could cling to the splintered fragments and say any part of her belonged to him.
So I just stand there, watching her crawl, letting her hate me the way I've always deserved.
When she finally stops at my feet, she kneels, her hands in her lap. She doesn't look up. Her shoulders heave, silent and small.
I want to pull her into my arms, but I know if I do, I'll never let her go.
