For the first time since I’d known him, he looked small, cornered, vulnerable, empty behind the fury slashing across his face.
I kept coming at him, my voice a blade. “You’re right, Caiden. My mom’s a mess, and my sister’s dead, and you’re a wreck because your father broke you. But you don’t get to use that as an excuse to make everyone else as miserable as you are. You’re not the only one who’s lost something.”
He trembled, fingers twitching at his sides, blood still trailing down his hand. “No,” he said, shaking his head, too forceful, as if he could send the words back inside me with sheer will.
“You want to blame me for everything? Fine. Do it. You want to hit me? Go ahead. But don’t pretend you’re not just a scared little boy who can’t stand feeling powerless.” I was screaming, flailing my arms like a woman gone mad.
Suddenly, he lurched forward, chest heaving, limbs rigid with a purpose even he didn’t seem to understand. His body crowded mine, but it wasn’t violence in his eyes now; it was something raw and pleading. “Ishouldhate you,” he whispered. “I should want tokillyou.”
But neither of us moved. The moment stretched dark and endless.
I was shaking, every muscle poised for flight, but I didn’t move. I wanted him to hit me, to make it real, to give me a wound on the outside that would finally match the ones inside.
“Why don’t you?” I challenged.
His face hovered a breath from mine, every line of his jaw clenching with the urge to destroy or collapse or both. I stared into his eyes, searching for the monster I’d always known and seeing only a wild, desperate ache.
For a heartbeat, we were suspended. Two wreckages circling the same fire, waiting for the spark.
He slammed his fist intothe wall above my head, hard enough to vibrate the bones of the house, and every nerve in my body fired. “You want me to be like him?” he spat, words trembling. “You want me to prove you right?”
“Go ahead,” I snapped back, “Ruin me. Finish me off. I’m a corpse waiting to be buried at this point, rotten from your fucking torment.”
I wanted him to bruise me. Bruise me so badly the ache would finally silence the endless, gnawing clamor in my skull.
He lunged, not with violence, but with hands tangled in my hair, mouth smashing against mine.
Fury sparked between our teeth. I bit down hard enough to taste blood, and he groaned, the sound animal, unguarded.
We tumbled, locked together, toppling to the floor as if gravity was stronger here, as if the house itself demanded our collision.
He pinned my wrists to the floor, face hovering just above mine, blood from his split lip falling hot onto my chin. “You’re crazy,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “You’re fucking insane.”
“So are you,” I said, and he kissed me again.
I hated myself for letting him in; hated how my mouth met his with equal violence, how my teeth scraped his tongue, drawing out more blood and a guttural sound that was half agony, half pleasure.
We clawed at each other, not with longing but with the blind, animal need to destroy and punish, howling into the kind of kiss that tears at both souls and lips.
His hands pinned and then released, fingers knotting in my hair, jerking my head back so hard I gasped.
I hated him. I hated him so much my whole body vibrated with it, and in that moment the hate felt electric, almost alive.
This was the only way we could forge our hatred into something physical and punishing.
The more I fought, the deeper he dug in, until my scalp ached from his grip and my jaw threatened to snap under the pressure of his mouth.
My legs thrashed for control, but he was heavier, meaner, and in some sick part of myself I relished being overpowered, relished feeling something that wasn’t numbness or sorrow.
“Is this what you want?” he spat, voice shattering on the question. “You want me to break you?”
He dragged his mouth down my neck, biting hard enough to leave marks, a necklace of bruises, dark as the thoughts that throbbed between us.
We thrashed on the hardwood, knocking into a small table. A lamp fell, glass shattering across the floor.
His hand slid up my shirt, nails raking, and I dug my fingers into the bite wound leaking across his jaw.
We were animals, gnashing at each other, neither willing to yield, neither wanting to win.
