Seventy-Three
I went into Dayne’s room today for the first time since I lost him. Found the card he’d left me. He hadn’t left me a note like a normal person. No, he’d left me a fucking card. A ‘sorry for your loss’ card. The fucker had bought me his own fucking good-bye card, and he’d written in it.
I traced his hand-written message with my finger, the last thing I had of his soul, and I cried.
Don’t cry for me.
I died doing something I loved: protecting you.
I love you, and I’ll be waiting for you in the Underworld with a whole host of books I’ve stolen from Hades’ library. I’ll even let you read me one of those porn books you love so much and spank me whenever I laugh. You think that’ll make Varius spank me too? ;)
Okay, look, not going to lie, some things happened between us in your absence. Not like that, porn-brain. But I’ve come around to him. He’s alright. He clearly loves you.
Not as much as me, obviously. And when he’s stressed, he doesn’t look as handsome either. I can pull off the ‘two hours of sleep, forgotten beard scruff, and haggard eyes’ look so much better than him.
I love you, Micha. Forever and always.
Death can’t stop that.
PS: Delete my search history. Actually, just burn my whole computer.
Then I came here, to Ezriel’s office, the one Talon used to occupy as he managed the distribution of Ricks and Vs.
I needed to come here.
Because Dayne tore apart my heart.
And Varius hates me.
He thinks I’m disgusting.
Ugly.
Wrong.
A disease.
He can’t bring himself to touch me.
He won’t even hold me.
Or sleep with me.
Or even just actually sleep with me.
Because he doesn’t trust me anymore.
Fuck.
I don’t know why he hasn’t thrown me out of the house.
Stop thinking about him.
Take another vial of V.
The temptation of that is almost impossible to ignore, but I only have an hour before I need to be back at the Shadow house. I don’t want Varius to be able to smell the V on me and think even less of me than he already does.
Shame hits me so fucking hard. I am as dirty as he thinks I am though. I willingly fucked Grubs and Bear and Antonio and Sadist. I rode Bear’s corpse. Told him what to imagine about a child.
Pushing up from the office chair, I yank open the top left drawer of Ezriel’s desk. I grab another bottle of V. My hands shake as I try to fight the memories. The knowledge of what I’ve done.
“Fuck you, Dayne,”
I rasp as all my self-hatred slams into me. I was fine before I found that fucking card. I managed to move away from the boat and all that happened there. I managed to move away from his loss, from the hole in my heart. From all the grief.
From Antonio.
I was fine.
I am fine.
Because Antonio is dead, and I’m alive, and I’m going to fucking move on.
I might manage to grieve Dayne and Rafiki one day, but I’m never going to grieve me. Because he didn’t break me. I broke him.
“Micha…”
Dayne murmurs, his voice in my head, as if even his ghost thinks his words alone can break me.
My throat tightens as I uncork the vial of V. “He didn’t turn me into a fucking victim,”
I say to an empty room, an empty hole, an empty shell of a woman. “So don’t Micha me. I survived all his shit, and I killed him.”
He stares at me in the guilt of my mind.
“I played my character to perfection. I got him to lower his guard, and I killed him.”
I’m not a victim. He didn’t break me. I’m not going to fucking give him the satisfaction of giving me trauma. “It was just a job. An act to get my target, and I always get my target.”
I always got it with Dayne.
“I always got it with you.”
But he isn’t here anymore.
Just a ghost in my head.
A fucking good bye on a card.
Tears burn my throat and eyes, but I shove them back.
I will not cry one more fucking tear.
I am done.
Antonio is done hurting me.
He can’t hurt me anymore. He’s dead.
He’s fucking dead, and I’m done giving him any more parts of me.
I killed him.
I killed him.
“I killed him!”
I throw the bottle of V at the opposite wall, my entire body shaking from a scream that’s building deep inside of me.
I killed them all.
One by one, I cut them down, and now it’s only me who remains.
I’m not a victim.
I’m not a fucking victim.
“Fuck you, Dayne, for leaving me.”
I yank open the drawer again. Grab another bottle of V and raise it to my lips.
The door of the office bursts open. I try to tip the glass back further, but with a blur of movement, Varius grabs it from my hand and tosses it to the floor beside me. He picks me up before it can smash near my feet, then sits me on the desk and steps back.
“Fuck you!”
I scream. Why’d he have to step back? I just want his arms around me. I want him to fuck me. I want him to replace the V. I want him to fucking care.
“This isn’t how you cope, Micha,” he says.
“What the fuck do you know about coping?”
I snap. “You don’t talk! You don’t touch me. You pretend like nothing happened!”
“I have been trying to get you to go to therapy! I don’t touch you because –”
“I don’t need therapy!”
I need you! I want you! I want my fucking husband, who I gave up so much of myself to save.
“Then why are you here?”
“What, you want me to kill myself?”
He rears back, then shakes his head. “No. Of course not. Fucking hel, Micha.”
My throat clogs as the tears build up behind my eyes.
“I meant here in this office, taking V, not still here. The fact that’s where your thoughts went first –”
He takes a step towards me, then stops. “You need help.”
I shove him back. “I don’t need fucking therapy.”
I don’t need to talk about what happened. I need to forget it. I want to just forget it and move on. I have lost so many months to that helhole. To him. And I just want my life back. I want me back. How can I fucking get that if I have to confront all I did? If I have to relive it and share it and explain why the fuck I did it?
“Talk to me,”
he says. “Why do you want the V?”
I stiffen, hearing Antonio’s words.
But I see my husband’s face, and I try. “It’s just a fun drug,” I say.
“Micha –”
“I don’t know why you’re making a big fucking deal out of this!”
I yell, unable to stomach Varius asking me like Antonio did. Trying to heal me like Antonio did. “You sell millions of dollars of this shit a year. Everyone else takes it.”
“We don’t,”
he says. “My capos don’t. You –”
“Stop trying to control me!”
“I’m not! I’m trying to help you!”
“Then fuck me.”
“Micha –”
I grab at his pants, but he steps back. Because I disgust him. Because he looks at me, and he sees the monster I am. Little monster. He called it all that time ago. He looked into my soul and knew it was rotten.
I am rotten.
I am a fucking disease.
No wonder he doesn’t want to touch me.
“Just leave me alone,” I say.
“Come home with me.”
“I don’t want to.”
I don’t want to go back to the house that didn’t protect me. Where I lost my daughter. Where Dayne’s room sits painfully empty. Where the flowers are all gone minus the ones at the front, a reminder that Leno died because of me. Where there’s no dog barking. Where it sounds even more silent for a mute man’s absence.
I brush at my eyes, but I’m not crying.
Because I’m fucking done being weak.
“Okay,”
he says, offering me his hand. “Then let’s just go for a drive.”
“I don’t want to be in a car with a fucking hypocrite,” I snap.
“How am I a hypocrite?”
“You come in here, and you judge me for ignoring shit and for healing in a way you don’t approve of –”
“Giving in to an addiction isn’t healing.”
“And you’ve ignored everything too!”
I shout over him.
“I’m not ignoring any–”
“I raped you!”
I scream as I hop off the desk and shove him backwards. “I raped you! Say it!”
“Micha!”
He takes a step back.
“Say it!”
Admit it. Don’t pretend it didn’t happen, so when you say you love me, I can believe you actually do.
“You didn’t –”
he starts.
“Why won’t you say it?”
“Because you’re my wife!”
he roars. “And the thought of you –” He cuts himself off, his chest heaving, his nostrils flaring. He clenches his fists in an effort to control himself, and I hate that he still has that ability. That he can think about me, about how much I need him to be safe and loving and good while I’m such a fucking disease to him. I can’t control the pain inside of me. I can’t stop it from bleeding out into a rage-fueled attack on those I love.
I just need the fucking V.
I spin towards the desk, but he wraps both his arms around me and hauls me to his chest.
“Just let me have some,”
I say, a desperate whisper, a heart-felt plea. I try to pull apart his hands, but he doesn’t let go of me.
“We can get through this.”
I don’t know who he’s trying to convince, but that anger I’m trying so hard to bury raises its ugly head.
I claw at his hands, try to stomp on his feet. “You’re ignoring it as much as me!” I shout.
“No, I’m –”
“Then say it! Fucking say it!”
Fucking see me as the monster I am instead of just acting like I’m not. Fucking see me. Fucking see me and let me know that I’m not a monster.
Because I know I am.
And I need him to tell me I’m not.
I sag in his arms, breathing hard.
“I raped you because I needed to play along. To let him think I would do anything he asked, and you didn’t matter. But I know the reasons don’t change how much it hurts.”
My lips wobble. My eyes burn. “I know because you hurt me to save Khalid, and it didn’t fucking matter.
“So don’t fucking say you understand. I understand that you wanted to save Khalid. But you hurt me. So I know I hurt you.”
I shake with all the pain. All the guilt and shame and self-disgust. I hurt him, and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how to confront that part of me to even say sorry because sorry reminds me of Grubs, and I can’t –
He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Too long, and his arms start to feel constricting. Like a prison. His silence like rejection.
I struggle free so I can wipe at my tearless eyes, my back to him. “I would die for you,”
I mutter. And he won’t even talk for me.
Grabbing my elbow, he turns me around and tilts my chin up. I look into his single eye as he looks into my red ones. Both so wrong...
“I don’t want you to die for me, Micha,”
he says softly. “I want you to live for me. I want you to fucking live.”
“I’m aliv–”
“But you’re not living.”
He leans his forehead down to mine. His eyes close as he shudders against me. His thumbs brush across my skin, and I can almost feel his pain echoing through me. “I just want you to live.”
My body trembling, I close my eyes and fight back the tears. I don’t need therapy because I don’t need to face any of this. I just need to move on.
But how can I deny him when I can see his pain?
When he holds me like this and makes me feel less of the monster I am?
“I’ll… I’ll go to one session,”
I whisper, my voice thick, my throat tight. If he wants to believe in me… maybe that’ll be enough to save me.