I didn’t want to be here anymore. I didn’t want to keep waiting for more pain, for more torture. I didn’t want to keep holding my breath for Dawn to kick me out to the street. Because surely after today, that’s exactly what was going to happen.
Shutting it all off was easier. There's less pain.
I’ve spent most of my life like that. It was easier to keep a tight grip on how things affected me emotionally, and at times physically. It’s what has saved me when a client took a whip to my back when I couldn’t get my dick to stay hard. It’s what protected me when I gagged the first time a cock was shoved into my throat without care. And it saved me when all I wanted was to die when I had all four limbs tied up and used by more than one client at the same time.
My breath caught in my chest as I forced the thoughts back to where they belonged. They all needed to stay in the dark boxes in my mind that were shelved and labeled. The boxes had tight lids that were never allowed to be opened, not even a tiny little slip. Because all it took was a tiny look, and it’d all come crashing down.
Although, maybe that was what I needed to end it all.
Let the boxes and memories and monsters crash over my head and drown me.
Then, maybe, finally, I’d be able to have the guts to end it all once and for all.
Afterall, how hard would it be to take a knife to my already scarred skin. How hard would it be to press a sharp edge into my flesh, letting the blood flow freely like it was a river?How difficult would it be to refuse to eat and drink, and let my body waste away?
Surely it couldn’t take too much work. It wasn’t like I was living anyways.
I was just skin and bones and nothingness.
Chapter 13
My eyes followed the silver part of the knife as Dawn chopped some green thing on the counter. She was chatting, again. And the words simply refused to register in my mind.
Nothing had changed in the last two days. I still felt empty. Lost, even. Which, given, was nothing new.
I felt absolutely nothing, even if the tears that leaked from my eyes randomly declared otherwise.
It felt like I lost my soul, maybe even my heart even if that thing was beating in my chest.
Nothing was right, yet nothing was wrong. It was just…. whatever.
I didn’t care anymore. Didn’t care that I wasn’t eating. Not caring that I wasn’t sleeping. And not caring that Dawn kept shooting me concerned looks since I woke up this morning.
Although, technically, I hadn’t woken up, because I hadn’t exactly slept. I dozed here and there, but every time I fell too deep into the blackness that I wished would swallow me whole, I’d jerk awake with memories.
That one box’s lid was cracked, slightly torn on the edge, letting certain memories creep into my thoughts with each passing hour.
It was the one box that held the worst of them, too. Why did it have to be that one? Why did it have to bother me now, out of everything else?
My shoulders felt heavy as I leaned my elbows on the counter, eyes glued to the knife. A part of my brain told me that that chopping knife was too big for what I needed, but it could do the job anyways.
“Koda?”
At that tone of voice, one where Dawn must have been calling my attention for longer than needed, I finally tore my gaze from the sharp metal to her face.But then instantly dropped my gaze to the countertop.
She knew.
Whatever she was about to say was stopped as the doorbell rang through the house. “If you touch that knife, and any of the others in this house and use it other than for food, will hurt me more than it’ll hurt you.”
How would it hurt her? It wasn’t Dawn’s body I was taking a pointy thing to. It was my own, and all it’d offer would be sweet relief.Relief that could seep from my pores like rain falling to the dry desert.
Before I could figure out any answers, Dawn was back in the kitchen, quickly taking the knife out of my sight.
“That was the neighbor,” she mused. “She got some of my mail.” Through my wateryeyes, I halfway watched Dawn clean up whatever she had been chopping before tossing it into a pot on the stove. “I may not understand a lot of what you’ve been through, but I know harming yourself isn’t going to fix a single thing.”
My idea was more than just a little nick.
“Or worse,” she went on as if she could read my thoughts. “It’d hurt me, in here.” Dawn placed a hand over where her heart lay. “Ever since that first time I was denied being allowed to have you, I’ve worked day in and day out to make sure I could take you in if I evergot the chance to do so. I’d say I’d even go as far as killing another human to save you, if it came down to it. So please, Koda.” Her voice broke as my name passed her lips. “Please, don’t do something that you can’t come back from.”
