Stasi
Chapter 25
Stasi
70 Days Dead
It’s not the first time I’ve been called a mistake, far from it. Countless people have left me behind in the bed of their regret. Sometimes I even wanted it that way because it was easier. But I forgot the most important rule, Becca is different. Those encounters never could have gutted me like this. There’s something insidious about the way neglect and emptiness cling to me with each step she takes in the opposite direction. The slimy sensation of rejection oozes from my pores. Old insecurities follow right along with it.
Always good enough to fuck. Never enough for anything more. Not even after everything I’ve sacrificed for her.
The hurt of her dismissal spills out of the floodgates and begins to taint everything good we just started building. The pride of helping her feel good in her body and the security of being the person she turned to ruined within seconds.
I follow her as she picks up her clothing off the floor and slips into the bathroom maneuvering carefully to avoid her reflection. But it’s not going to be so easy for her to brush me off. I can’t believe I gave her another piece of me. It wasn’t part of the plan. Even disguised as a game, the intimacy we just shared was real. That’s just how it’s always been with us. She can’t keep denying it.
“What?” Her brows furrow.
“That didn’t take long. I thought we’d gotten past this.” I search for that open, eager woman who’d peeked through. She’s gone; I’m left with this imposter once again. “But I guess I never see things clearly when it comes to you.” My pointer and thumb find opposite sides of her mouth and draw them upward as she trembles beneath my touch. “There she is, my pretty little liar.”
Jerking away, Becca shoots a glare at me. But she can’t hide the hurt that twists her features. Not from me. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I thought you were done running from all this.” God I just want to go back to when she was on top of me. The temptation of all that cotton candy skin on display sidetracks me. “Can you please put your damn clothes on?” Retreating to the doorway, I escape the deceptively sweet scent of her that clouds my judgment with the perfection of what we just shared. “I should have known better instead of wanting to believe that you were finally being honest about opening up and accepting yourself.”
“I’m trying. Or I was at least. But come on, think about it. What does it even matter?” Exasperation paints her speech as she struggles with the buttons on her shorts.
“That’s bullshit.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped you across the face.” Shaking my head, I try to untangle the sticky web of emotions tied to our past and present. Ten years later, that fear of abandonment still clings strong. “You promised you weren’t going to use me.”
“I didn’t.”
“Certainly feels that way.” I hastily close the clasps of my own shirt. “You’re hot then you’re cold, drawing close when it suits you and shoving me away when it doesn’t, like you just did. I’m a fucking person, Becca. I’m just as much a part of this equation as you are. I’m not like everyone else; I won’t cater to your whims anymore.” Her endless entitlement sets my irritation aflame. The dormant torches of resentment light, guiding the harsh words out of me and burning the progress we’ve made to the ground behind me.
“I don’t understand what the problem is. You seemed more than happy with this arrangement just an hour ago.” Frustration strains her delicate features. “You’re the one who started all this. You’re the one who sought me out.” What can only be described as a shriek escapes her, that iron fist she usually has on her polite composure slipping. “If it wasn’t for you meddling in my life, neither of us would even fucking be here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you insinuating that it’s my fault that I’m dead? Are you under some misguided impression that I wanted to be murdered, confined to this property, and then stuck here with a selfish, entitled, whiny little bitch?” My voice rises with each insult.
She stops pacing and marches toward me. “Trust me, I fucking regret it. If I could go back, I would rather have turned myself in than be frozen in time with nothing and no one but you. Every single day I wish I could go back and stop myself from slitting my wrists.” Her voice breaks. “I just wanted it all to stop. I would never have chosen to be here with someone who hates me when I could be with people who love me.”
This is the perfect opportunity to make her feel the sharp sting of rejection like I have. “I do hate you. I hate who you’ve turned me into. I hate what you’ve taken from me.” But as much as her actions have hurt me, there’s no denying how much I need her. “And most of all, I hate that part of me will always want you no matter how fucking terrible you treat me.” I want to swallow back the acidic vulnerability of that admission.
“What do you mean you want me? How can you want me?” Fingers tangling in her hair, she pulls at her roots. “Because you could have fucking fooled me, with how much of the blame you’re willing to force me to carry,” she hisses. Her anger flares and it lights her up. The spark ignites the trail of gasoline I’ve been pouring down the path and the blaze of it consumes her. She’s spectacular. The blue undertone of her eyes becomes brilliant like shooting stars, her body thrums with everything she’s not saying, and the energy she embodies is a live wire. She’s absolutely breathtaking.
In the cracks of the shattered mirror, I see little pieces of the real us tucked away. Not the imposters we’ve been playing, smiling at one another, trusting one another.Along the jagged edges of broken glass, we’re sharp eyes and bared teeth and digging nails. The unbridled chaos thriving there is dangerous, it always has been. The repressed part of me yearns to pry it open further until my fingertips bleed and we’re both painted in crimson, the color of our terrible truth— love, betrayal, death . But she’ll never allow it. Everything needs to be gold for her. I can see her squirming when she realizes how clearly I see her; her hands are eager to solder the exposed imperfections. The metallic substance is foaming from her mouth and bleeding from her eyes as she silently pleads with me not to go there.
But I’ve always been a hopeless romantic. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we could look past the fractures, allowing ourselves to remain focused on how good we look together in the pieces that remain unbroken. Is it selfish if I allow myself to play pretend just a little bit longer?
“Well, I do. I want you, Becca.” Four little words that are so hard to say out loud because they’re dangerous with a woman like this, with what she’s capable of doing to me— destroying me . “But I won’t settle for being at your beck and call. I won’t let myself get burned by you again.”
“As if you’re any better with all your little mind games,” she shouts.
“It never had to be like this.” My throat works, tight and uncomfortable as I choke on the unnecessary suffering I’ve endured simply because I’ve loved her.
“I can’t give you what you want.”
“Can’t, or won’t?” I reject her easy out.
“Can’t. I don’t even know who I am anymore. Haven’t for a long time.” She sniffs back the tears that glitter on her lashes. “I did everything I was supposed to—I was docile, sweet, and studious—I did my best to be perfect, and what did it get me? Nothing. The last few months of my life were pain and misery, and now…now I’m dead before I even have a developed pre-frontal cortex for fuck’s sake.” Taking a deep inhale, Becca balls her fists against her forehead. “I have nothing to give you. Without my family, without college, without my plan , I don’t even know what to do with myself. So just give me a goddamn break, okay? I can’t just slip into whatever role you want me to play.”
“I don’t need you to be anything. I want you to be yourself. The real you. She’s in there, I know it.” I lean forward, capturing her cold gray eyes.
“Oh, that’s rich,” she says sarcastically. “Who’s the liar now? You don’t like the real me. We both know you want me to fit into your perfect little fantasy of who you expected me to be.” She throws her arms outward. “Well, this is all I’ve got. I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I know what it’s like to want something I can’t have.” A bitter laugh slips through my teeth, but I manage to catch the secret I want to throw at her feet. I want her to know she can’t hide from me, that I see the scared little girl she really is, still running from a truth that’s clear as day and undeniable as the letters they carved into the top of her desk— Becca Murphy loves Anastasia Eden. And god did I want her to accept it after all these years, but she’s still too much of a coward. My heart leapt into my throat when she gave me so much trust tonight—fluttering violently with hope when she opened up so much to herself—but then we were just thrown back into this cursed cycle all over again. The moment she shifted away from my touch, I knew it was over, just like that day she shook her head vehemently with denial when they accused her of loving me. So many years ago, the wings of hope were brutally clipped. They were never bandaged up right, never properly healed, breaking them again was far too easy. Every time she gives me a little glimpse of how good things could be, I’m so quick to risk crashing down again.
I can trace all the fucked-up decisions I’ve made back to that my first heartbreak. When I knew the way I loved Becca Murphy was cursed. An uneven scale, a romantic injustice that I would serve a lifetime for. It’s coming to a head now. But I’ve learned my lesson, I’m not going to give her another opportunity to reject me. “At least I’m brave enough to go after what I want. But thank you so much for your ‘honesty’. I’m so glad you showed me that you aren’t worth the risk.”
“You say I’m the risk, but god, you’re so toxic I can hardly breathe around you!”
I laugh, something unstable like a chemical reaction to her destructive words. “I’m toxic. Oh, sweetheart. You need to take a better look in that mirror. Nobody has ever been more toxic than you. Should we talk about all the relationships you’ve poisoned? What about Meg?” What about me? But I leave that part left unsaid. “And poor Aiden?”
“Don’t you dare.”
But I do. There’s no stopping what I’ve started. “He loved you so unconditionally, but there was always that voice in your head wasn’t there? The one where you wished he didn’t get everything he wanted. The one that wished that he had to hide away parts of himself and suffer like you.”
Becca’s teeth click together as she holds back the lie she can’t bring herself to say.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” A triumphant laugh escapes me. “It must have been so hard seeing him live his truth while you cowered behind a carefully devised facade. I hate to be the one to break it to you but you’re so right. You have no idea who you are at all because you’re so caught up in being the perfect, fake, plastic doll that keeps you safe from dealing with any of the really hard stuff life throws at you. Turns out that foundation was laid pretty haphazardly. Those walls you built up around yourself aren’t very sound.” I rap my knuckles on the wall behind me for dramatic effect. “One big quake in your perfect little world and it all comes crumbling down leaving you exposed. And guess what, I see you for what you really are.”
“Stop. Fucking. Talking.” Becca’s voice is cutting; I lean into it, not afraid to nick myself.
“What’s wrong, Crybaby? Are you afraid of how ugly you can be when someone peels back the paint?”
As her features contort, something inside me grows anxious to soothe her, but I resist the urge. Instead, I drive a nail into the coffin, ready to kick her down into the dirt just like me. “I hope playing it safe was worth it because I’m done trying to help you. I’m done caring.”