Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ella
Pain - Nessa Barrett
I burst through the door of my college house, tears still streaming down my face as I run to my bedroom. I still don’t have my phone, so I grab my tablet to call my brother. I don’t know what’s going through my head anymore. I don’t know how I feel.
All I know is I don’t want to feel anything at all.
“ Hey, El— What’s wrong? ” His serious face shows on my screen. I hadn’t even realized I clicked on a video call.
“Do you know what kind of man you associated with to kill Dad?” I yell, completely out of my mind.
His face falls, and he looks around him.
“Oh my god,” I croak, barely able to catch my breath. “It’s true. You did it.”
I see him walk, then open and close a door. He’s in some sort of office.
“ Where are you? ” he asks me. “ I’ll come right now. ”
“I don’t want you to come,” I spit out. “I don’t want to be near you. I want you to know who your best friend really is.”
“ Ella, please, calm down. You know just as well as me that it had to be done. ”
“Too bad you picked a lying bastard to do it with. He’s the one who convinced you, wasn’t he? Murder, Luke. Murder .”
“ I trust Chris with my life, ” he answers sternly.
“And with mine?” I snarl. “You know nothing about that man.”
“ Ella, please calm down. Are you at your house? ” I see him stand up. “ I’m on my way. We can talk. ”
“We used to date. In high school. Did he ever tell you that? I know he didn’t. He made me fall in love with him. He was controlling. He fucked me behind your back while you were telling all your friends to not approach me.”
For a few seconds, nothing shows on his face. Then his breathing starts accelerating, his nostrils flaring.
“ Are you making this up to piss me off? ”
“I fucking wish. I didn’t get into Juilliard because of him!”
“ You and Chris dated behind my back? ”
“I wanted to tell you. But he didn’t. Because he’s a coward and a liar. He’s still after me, did you know that? Did your best. Friend. Tell you that he cheats on Megan with me? Did he tell you that he never brought your name to the Circle because he wanted me to initiate so he could use me as an Aphrodite? That’s the man you trust with your life. The same one who filled my head with lies so he could keep controlling me, and my heart with hope so he could keep me close.”
He opens his mouth to say something, then clamps it shut in a click of teeth. I watch as his eyes darken, and his jaw tightens. And out of nowhere, his phone flies across the room. All I see is a blurry image and hear a crash before everything goes black.
I throw my own tablet on the bed, and a scream of despair leaves my lungs. It lasts until I’m out of breath and anguish has filled my body rather than air. My throat is sore, and I can taste blood in my mouth. I want to rip my skin off, escape from my body so my soul doesn’t have to suffer so much.
I have never felt a betrayal like this, so heart wrenching. It was one thing when he broke up with me to move on, and I was stupid enough to stay around for him to hurt me and manipulate…but to the lengths he did? This is a deception I can’t handle.
Is this all I’m good for? Lies and schemes?
I push the door to my ensuite bathroom and fall to my knees in front of the cabinet under the sink.
Am I only worth something if I’m the dumb, clueless girl who can be controlled?
I reach for the box of razors, my hands fiddling with the plastic wrapped around it.
I’ve only ever been surrounded by men who exploit me one way or another. And when I want to hide from one, it’s in the arms of another who is worse.
A smile reaches my face when I finally pinch the blade between my fingers. I don’t even know when I got rid of my jeans. I’m only wearing a white cardigan on the floor of my bathroom, and I find it weirdly satisfying that it’ll soon be soaked in blood.
I’ll lie down in it and smell the copper tang in the room. And I’ll embrace the pain when I close my eyes.
I cut a first line, the same usual pinch of a surface wound. It’s not much, just a short release of pain. But I can finally take a full breath. So I do it again, adding to the collection of thin white scars on my thigh.
A moan of relief escapes me. It feels too good not to cry, so I let more tears fall as my lips part.
My chest can finally expand when I press deeper, and I throw my head back, crying out as my mind alleviates. I’m slightly lightheaded when I look down at my right thigh again, and I press my fingertips on the three new cuts. The deeper one sends a wave of dizziness through me, my stomach twisting.
I like it.
So I make another one just as deep.
Four . I smirk. That’s a record. It feels heavenly.
“Ella.”
I shriek as my body jolts so hard my ass leaves the floor and crashes back down.
Chris’s eyes are wide, his gaze stuck on my leg, on the blood dripping down, and on my white sleeves. I didn’t hear him come in. All I could hear was the steady beat of my heart as beautiful pain ran through me.
“Ella, baby…” His face pales as reality hits him.
Falling to his knees in front of me, he takes the blade from my hand. “What are you doing?” he croaks.
He presses a hand on my leg, and I start shaking from shame. This is mine. My secret, my coping mechanism. And no one is allowed to know about it. A strange giggle leaves me, and I look past him.
It’s like the world loses color and sound when I dissociate. I know I’m here, but my soul isn’t.
“Don’t,” he says sternly. “Come back.”
How does he even know?
“How could you do this to me? How could I believe you when you gave me that stupid excuse,” he implores, his voice so desperate for understanding. He kisses my forehead. “Come back.” My cheeks. My lips. “When did this start? You didn’t have those scars in high school.”
How could he do this to me?
“I don’t know,” I repeat in a whisper. “It started after the breakup. Or maybe when things got worse with my dad. The parties. I’m dumb. He sais I was so stupid. I’m stupid. I don’t know… I hate you.”
I blink slowly, my strength not so present anymore. I feel dizzy.
“I know everything,” I croak. “ Everything .”
“Sweets.” When I open my eyes, he’s standing in front of me, his black shirt gone. “You know nothing.”
“I know what you did,” I say on a choked breath. Nothing is real, is it? Nothing feels real.
My eyes catch the blade he’s holding. “Give it back.”
It’s heading toward his stomach.
“What— Chris! ” I’m brought back to reality like someone just threw a cold bucket of water.
He cut himself.
“Why do you do it?” he asks, his soft tone edged with torment. “When?” As he talks, he cuts himself again.
And again.
“I need to understand,” he explains, as if he can’t feel anything. “If I understand, I can stop it. Help me.”
I shake my head, a sob bursting out of my mouth. “I don’t understand it myself. Stop. Stop hurting yourself.”
“When do you do it?”
“I don’t know.”
“When was the last time?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know,” I cry out, tears flowing down my cheeks and neck, wetting my chest as my hoarse voice keeps begging. “Please, stop. ”
“No.” He does it again and blood drips down his abs. “If you hurt, I hurt. And if you bleed, I bleed.”
“You broke me. You broke us. Stop!” I shriek.
“You know nothing of why I did what I did… I had to.”
“No. You could have been honest. You could have…you could have… stop! ” Another line that will scar appears on his stomach. I’m nauseous at the sight, my chest aching with desperation to stop this. Stop everything.
“Listen to me,” he says in a low, almost threatening voice. “You didn’t want me back, and I warned you. There is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing I wouldn’t do to have you back.” And he cuts himself again. “I will bleed to within an inch of my life if I have to. I will ruin your entire future. I will drag you kicking and screaming, but what I won’t do is let you move on from me.”
He's panting now, his muscles flexing, his abs tensing as he’s about to cut another time. Stopping short, he looks down at me on the floor.
“If you hurt, I hurt,” he repeats in a calmer voice. Then he kneels in front of me and puts a hand on my cheek. “Why did you do this?”
“My life is falling apart,” I sob brokenly.
Wiping away my tears with his thumb, he brings his other hand to my face and repeats the process.
“Let me put it back together. Please. Please, I’m begging you. Let me pick up the pieces.”
“There are no pieces left, Chris. It’s all gone. There is nothing left to fix and it’s all your fault.”
“Then build a new life with me. Let’s build our own world. You be the sun, and I’ll bask in your light. Be the air, and I’ll breathe you in. Give me life, give me a purpose. Be my everything. I know…” He inhales a deep breath, taking everything in. “I know I wa nt a lot. I know you’ll struggle to relinquish control, but I also know you could bloom into who you should really be. I’m no artist, no poet. I’m no painter who will depict you in a beautiful way. The only thing I can do is shape you into the goddess you are.”
He presses the back of my head, pulling me to his chest. “Breathe, Sweets. Breathe for me, please.”
It seems like an impossible thing to do. But then, with my ear pressed against his hot skin, I hear the sound of his heart. He takes another breath, and I sense it settling.
“Like me,” he says quietly. “Just like me.”
I follow the way his chest expands, holds, and depletes. I do the same, imitating him.
“Again.”
Inhale.
Block.
Release.
“Atta girl. Look at you, baby.” He caresses my hair. “You’re such a good girl for me.”
I nod against his chest. “I won’t do it again.”
He pulls me away, looking in my eyes. He caught the lie. I can see it. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
More tears roll down my cheeks. I feel like I’m being torn apart. “I don’t know what to do.”
“What you’ll do is the next time you take a step toward hurting yourself, I want you to call me. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is. It doesn’t matter where you are, who you’re with, what you plan on doing. If you think it’ll hurt, you call.”
He kisses my lips, hard and violently. “Do you feel this?” he growls against me. I feel like my body is only alive in the places he touches me. “What you’re feeling when I hold you. That matters. That’s what you focus on.” He presses a hand on my heart, and it beats steadier for him. “And this.”
He kisses me again. Roughly, as if to keep me in the present.
“Where is the rest? Show me, baby.”
I move to the side, showing the cabinet behind me, and I open the door. Instead of giving him anything, I hold the box of one hundred razor blades to my chest.
“Don’t look,” I sob, but it’s more like a shout. “Please, please, don’t .”
He pries my arms away. “It’s okay. I won’t judge you.”
“I don’t know why,” I repeat. “I don’t know why I do it.” And it’s true. All I know is that it happens, and it feels good, but my mind is never clear enough to understand what’s happening.
“I understand.” He takes the box from me, and when I dare to look at him, his face is paler than I’ve ever seen it, but he still gives me a small, reassuring smile. “It’s going to get better.”
And I thought I was going to shake my head and disagree with him, but I catch myself nodding, a desperate plea leaving my lungs, “Do you promise?”
He bites his trembling lower lip, taking a deep breath through his nose. “I promise you I’ll be there to make it better.”
The relief that washes over me like a wave is short-lived.
“Get the fuck away from my sister before I blow your brains out.”