C H A P T E R 47
C H A P T E R 47
FEED MY VIOLENCE
Puppeteer
Play - ‘Numb - Linkin Park’
I t's because she is not an object that I cannot bring myself to harm her further. She’s been avoiding me and for good reason, I want her to resent me but there is a part of me yearning for this life she so desperately sees with me and I don’t understand what she can see. Logistically, we would never work. The only option is to do time and I'm not prepared to commit to something like that again just yet. I’ve done what I needed to do, why the hell would I get myself thrown in there when I could stay here and live out my sad little life doing what I do best. She needs to let it the fuck go. She needs to let us go. There is no us . That sex meant more to me than I will ever admit to her because it keeps her tied to me. She needs to fear me, hate me . The way she used to, but I don’t know why I am struggling to treat her the way my mind intends.
I grip my nails into the palms of my hand as she jumps down off the roof making her way inside, shaking in inner irritation. I’m a fucking idiot. I don’t know why the hell I fucking said that.
I should probably run after her but that is not me. Like none of this is fucking me. I’m turning into a fucking pussy and I need a damn drink. Preferably not in her vicinity or I may do something I regret.
I jump off and head straight for the truck, following my intrusive thoughts until I reach the nearest bar, pulling up outside a rundown shack with a singular neon bottle hanging on for dear life to the brick wall. The stench of beer and boisterous men lingers in the air as I light a cigarette, drowning in my numbness as I stare at the door contemplating whether this is a good idea but quite frankly, I don’t give a shit and I need to take my mind off her for five fucking minutes before I lose it.
I crush the cigarette in my palm and make my way inside with my hands in my pockets. It’s not a bar I've personally visited, but there is a first time for everything and I'd rather not bump into company. As long as I can drown my sorrows I couldn’t give a fuck what it looks like.
I reach the bar, slamming dollars down before taking a seat, hanging my head with the overwhelming thought of her like a lingering cold that won’t leave me alone.
“JD. Neat.” I demand as a dominant but feminine voice drips down my ear, looking back up to a woman with long ginger hair and a prideful smile, wiping out a glass before grabbing my poison.
“You’ve seen better days.” She places the whole bottle in front of me with a shot glass to compliment it as she pours one out like she knows one drink is not all I’ll be asking for.
“Not really.” I drag it to my mouth, letting it heal my harm as it glides down my throat, burning me from the inside and god I forgot how good it feels.
“Dark and mysterious. Beats the regulars I get in here.” I eye her curiously, in her tight black jeans and pretty throat exposed with a cute little owl necklace, glaring around the room at all the drunk fucks gawking at her over the bar.
“Someone like you shouldn’t be working in here.” She pours me another, smiling at me with serenity, leaning on the bar to get more comfortable.
“And has a way with words.” She confesses, making me huff out loud as I neck another, tapping it on the wood as I roll my eyes in disagreement. My way with words is clearly riveting. It’s why I'm bloody here.
“You can say that again…” She mimes an ‘ohhhhhh’ as she reads me, filling the glass back up.
“That can only mean one thing. Whose heart did you break?” I look up at her, properly this time, analysing her eyes as she analyses mine like she can read my every thought and it’s slightly terrifying.
“What makes you say that?” I scoff, taking another.
“Only people as handsome as you, who are drowning themselves in JD and wallowing in their own egotistical pity at midnight in the middle of the week are pining over a stupidly pretty girl they couldn’t win over with their dick.” Her words nearly make me crumble the shot glass in my fingers as she nails me with her scarily accurate accusation.
“ Ouch . Remind me never to ask you a question again.”
“What can I say? I’ve been here a long time. And you were a fool and didn’t wrap your tool.” Clearly too long. The girl needs a life or something. But her little dig does make me grin with amusement, and I did technically win her over with my cock. That's the problem.
“Hate to break it to you, but my cock is detachable.” I look at her, expecting to see her laugh but she doesn’t. Instead, she raises a brow with this seriousness that I'm not ready to listen to.
“I wasn’t talking about what's between your legs. I was talking about the thing in your chest.” Another slides down my throat, trying to ignore the way she just tried to point out I could possibly care when I literally kill for sport.
“It doesn’t work.” It hasn’t worked for years. It’s why it doesn’t matter what I do. This will never work. We would never work. I was built to destroy, not mend.
“It does. You just gotta find the right part.” People have so much hope. This unbearably annoying notion that love conquers all. That it's possible in everyone. But it’s not, and I'm sick of fucking hearing it.
“What if it’s broken.” How the hell is someone meant to fix my engine when it’s well and truly seized.
“Everything can be fixed. Whatever you did. It’s fixable.” I ponder on her optimism, wishing it was that simple. But then I relive everything I've done to her and suddenly it doesn’t look so easy. I can’t bring her parents back. I can’t give her virginity back. I can’t give the last god damn half a year back to her.
“What if you stole her parts to try and fix your own.”
…
I grab the bottle, giving up with the glass as I swig it, glaring at her for an answer and she has one sitting on the end of her tongue.
“Then I'd suggest you stop being a selfish cunt and make up for being a jerk.” Her fiery spirit makes me smile and even though I'm meant to be forgetting about her right now, I'm getting bitchy dating advice from a bartender, and all I can think about is her as I rub the scar on the inside of my hand.
“That mouth will get you in trouble, you know that-” I search respectfully for her name badge on her top.
…
“ Ellie .” I mutter deeply as I peer back up at her glued eye contact, holding it for a little and I can see her turning slightly red, even in the warm lighting. Her eyes are entirely different from my Little Puppets . They are a void. A deep brown that harbours pain, so full of death. A look I know all too well. She’s seen it all and she thrives in it. It’s a look I'm familiar with. Someone I should be interested in but now my interests have changed.
Play - ‘Coming Undone - korn’
“Is this lowlife disturbing you baby ?” A husky groan emerges from behind me, leaning over the bar to try and intimidate me with the stench of liquor. I don’t react, and she says nothing.“Hey, get your own, jackass .”
I side eye him through my bottle, nearly spitting it out in amusement. As beautiful as she is, she isn’t my Little Dreamer. Nor will anyone else ever fucking be.
“Paranoid much? Worried a lowlifes gonna steal your girl?” He reacts exactly how I expected. Threatened .
“And an idiot.” He snorts like a pig at his own humour and he's so punchable, my fist may just fly.
“You guys really like to throw accusations around huh?” It doesn’t take him long before he's in my face, nearly spitting on me with his vile breath. Whatever she sees in him. It’s clearly not his looks.
“Don’t hit on my woman and we won’t have a problem.” My hands raise, admitting defeat so he’s calms the fuck down.
“Look man. I’m just here to drink and she was aiding my request. Cool it . That's her job.” That clearly has no effect on his intoxicated craving for a fight, but I haven't had a good brawl in a while, and I'm urging to quiet my demons.
“Beat it.” He’s slightly shorter than me and he’s far thinner than me so this confidence is truly admirable, he won’t think so though when he wakes up with a broken nose tomorrow if he keeps getting in my fucking face.
“Paranoid and insecure. That's cute.” I spit, as he steps closer, practically inside me as he leans into my frame, challenging me with his feeble attempt at pushing my buttons and all I can do is kiss my teeth with excitement. This is gonna be good.
“You wanna watch your mo-”
His nose crunches as I crack it with my forehead, I ain't dealing with his obnoxious mouth tonight, finding his face in the bar as I grip the back of his neck slamming his sorry ass into the surface listening to the snap in the wood. Apparently neither is he as he wipes the blood streaming down his lip before aimlessly swinging for me, knocking me across the jaw catching my silverware, sending my head to nearly dislocate but I laugh under my breath, feeling the instant throb of torn skin where my piercing tried to dislodge itself. He’s awoken a beast and my liquors starting to interrupt my bloodstream, moving solely on its hunger to feed my violence.
“You FREAK !” It only makes me cackle more, forcing my steel toe boot to his stomach, feeling him crush underneath me as he launches into the standing tables licking the gash where my tooth caught my lip, rolling in the sensation it gives me. The pulse is feeding me like I've snorted a line of coke as the metallic taste fills up my mouth.
Only I would get into a fucking bar fight with an incompetent drunk over a girl I wasn’t even remotely interested in, all whilst trying to drown my feelings for the girl I am losing myself completely over. I’m drowning in this uninvited redemption she's trying to shove down my throat and my body won’t allow it. I’m throwing it back up along with my kindness. This is who I fucking am and she needs to just get the fuck over it already. The quicker she does the better, because this nice act is only making me restless for blood.
“Hit me.” I allow him to find his feet, giving him false security as he swings for me again, inflicting pain I oh so crave, grinning like the Devil as he hits me again, making me feel. Making me consume pain as he lets his pathetic tantrum out on my face before I grab him by the scruff of his neck and pummel his stomach with my knee, listening to him choke on his empty threats. Does he really think his little love taps are going to have any effect on me? They are kisses. “That's enough of that…”
Play – ‘Can I – Genevieve Stokes’
I let him go, knocking him clean out with a final blow to the chin before grabbing the bottle of JD and dragging it off the counter. I coat my tongue in it as I tend to my mouth and lick it clean, feeling the torn hole under my already swelling lip throb, embracing its sting like I embrace her, drowning in the affliction as I picture her sweet little dimples and the beaming life still so hopeful in her eyes. The adrenaline is wearing off, leaving only my vulnerable body left to fend for itself as I sink into a pit of inflicted sorrow, intoxicated with only a longing for her in my arms and it's pissing me off how intensely I mourn for her when she is now not by my side. The past few days she’s literally tried to avoid me and it’s been agonising. This distance and silence is getting to my head. I said what I said so she’d hate me but it backfired heavily because now I'm the one getting hit the hardest. I bet she’s over this shit by now, probably watching TV or asleep or something while I grovel like an idiot.
I glance over at Ellie gawking back at me, but not with fear. With spiritual excitement. I just beat her man to a pulp and she liked it. Sucks for him. But at least I could be entertainment, as usual.
My main worry now is that I've picked a fight and now I've drawn attention but the rest of the bar seem too gone to notice there was even a dispute.
“Have a good rest of your evening Sweetheart .” I leave her with a gentle wink as I catch the blood dripping down my chin with my thumb and she fixates on me like I'm a foreign language, trying to understand me now. The truth is, no one ever truly did. Not even my mom. There is lots I never told her out of fear but most was so I could keep her from danger. Keep her from the truth which was inevitable. The gift he so graciously gave me across my cheek, I told her was from falling off my bike and although she never questioned further, the deceit in her eyes assured me that she always knew the truth. She wore it painfully behind the facade she performed. But she knew. She always knew.
For a little while I resented her for letting it happen when I found out she knew. Until one day I found burns etched into her shoulders and realised it was never just me being punished by the Devil and I began to endure it all so she didn’t have to.
It was never enough. He was never satisfied. Hungry for my screams until I’d pass out and wake up in bed with an incurable migraine and marking so heavy I didn’t understand how it never killed me at that age. I was just a fucking kid.
I hover over his pointless excuse for air as I spit on his mangled face, digging my heel into his ribs waiting to hear them crack beneath my boot but I refrain just this once, only pinning him down with the notion I might as that fearful glare I long for is staring back at me, feeling the pressure burning under my foot.
“Next time. Pick on someone your own size. Jackass .” I remove my foot, letting him breath again as he crawls away, clinging to the foot of a stool and I exit swiftly, bottle in hand, knowing this will be gone by the time I get back. I might just sleep in the truck, lock myself in so I don't do something dumb. Like try and apologise.
I plant my ass in the truck leaning back in the seat, letting my head hang as the blood pumps, burning my open wounds with a loving touch. I’m barely able to see as I turn the key, rolling out my dull ache in my jaw as it throbs, licking the sweet pennies from my teeth.
I picture my mom. And this is why I don't drink. Because in my most vulnerable moments, she's the only person to comfort me and she's not fucking here. Because of me . So I cradle my pain, imagining her next to me as I hold out my bottle.
“ Happy birthday Mom… ”