Themoment.
He’s taken me up as high as I can get; now he’s dropping me so he can watch how pretty I look when I shatter.
The worst part is: he’s not even been discreet about wanting this. He’s told me time and again how he’d like to watch me break. He’s always been a wolf in wolf’s clothing. Blatantly, and clearly,evil. I guess I really have been manipulated perfectly, a doll on puppet strings, dancing to his whim.
In lieu of lifting my chin, he crouches to regain my attention. Peering up at me, he says, “Your brain has always been a formidable adversary, Azalea. It’s always given you the worst-case scenarios and sent you running with them. All things considered, I know I’m a pretty rotten scenario. How you are is as obvious as how I am. We’re both completely unstable. But I don’t want our future to feel like a worst case waiting to happen.” His smile vanishes, and he crosses his arms atop his knees, pillowing his chin there. “I love you. For you. With your brain. With your demons. I’d like to be one of them. One of the monsters that sticks with you forever. One of the crazies thatfitsandfeels right. I don’t want a doubt in your head that this is eternal. I don’t want that beautiful, cruel brain of yours toeversay you’re too much or too little or too hard or too troublesome for someone like me. We’re gonna work together against the lies, and to do that, you’re always going to remember this horrible truth.” Softer than anything I’ve ever seen on his face, he smiles again. “Malcolm Swallow, your adoring husband, sucks. He deserves no condolences and no accolades. He’s rotten to the core. But he’d jump off buildings for you anyway. Nothing matters as much to him asyou. Just the way you are. And he’s done everything to prove it. He’s done everything to bring you right here, to right now. He’s tramped through madness to makeit clear he wants you, dove. He wants you so badly he’d gladly die to get you.” When Malcolm straightens up, I follow the sincerity in his eyes. “We’re the end, dove. You and me. Maybe we’re exactly the horror that your brain has been warning you about. But now that it’s right in front of you, now that you know you can survive it, what do you have to say?”
What do I have to say about this?
About tricking me. And tormenting me. And torturing my brain.
About manipulating me. And confronting me. And becomingmymonster.
A bigger one than the ones in my head.
The biggest one I have ever dealt with.
What could I possibly say to allthat?
“I love you.” The feeling fills my body, leaving nothing else. It’s somuch, but it isgood, and I can hardly fathom a world without it. Now that it’s sprung forth, it overflows. And it burns. And it blazes.
Calmly, he nods. “Always?”
“Yes.”
“And you know I love you?”
My voice breaks. “I think you’re crazy.”
“Crazy in love with you?”
I’m struggling to wrap my mind around the slim possibility of that. “Even though I’m…”
“Significantly less of a handful than I am?”
I flush.
He chuckles. “Yeah. Of course. Come on.”
Absently, I trail after him and sink into his bed when he pulls the covers down for me. Without touching, he tucks me, then climbs in on his side. I watch him settle, facing me, and I allow my body to give up on illusions of control.
I will live. Or I will die. But if I focus so much on the threat of the latter, I’ll never obtain the former. And what’s the point of being alive if I don’t actuallylive?
“Talk to me,” he says, so simply.
“I nearly stabbed you,” I tell him.
He smiles. “I know. I thought it was cute.”
“You’re nuts.”
“And you almost stabbed a man.” He tucks his arm up under his head. “We’re pretty perfect together, aren’t we?”
“How did you know we would be?”
“Didn’t. I just fell in love with you. Then I hoped a whole bunch. Then I schemed a whole bunch more.”
Breathing gets easier, even if the breaths become more shallow. “Did you really manipulate me into falling for you?”
