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I was sure the rain was sizzling as it contacted my hot brow. I was sure I was covered in steam. Literally fucking fuming.
“Because of just that, my dear,” I said. “Because you still don’t believe me. When I say I’ll destroy your life. When I say I’m wrong for you. When I say I’ll fuck you up and leave you empty. Because, my little thief, you still believe in us. You still nestle your cheek against my back as I drive you off the cliff. You still crawl to me through the mud and rain and stabbing rocks, when I practically kill you on the side of the highway. You still try to heal me as I cut your life to pieces. To fucking pieces, Aurnia!”
Aurnia was silent in her fury. Brows drawn. Lips frozen like marble. Eyes filled with the flames that seared my burning leg.
“Because you won’t learn,” I said, laughing bitterly as I threw up my arms. “Because you won’t fucking learn.”
I pointed down at her, half out of my mind in anger, half out of my mind in pain.
“Because you need to know the fucking truth,” I said wildly. “You need to know what your future with me looks like. I can tell you exactly what it looks like, because I was you, Aurnia. I was the child smitten with the adult. I was the starry-eyed innocent who would do anything for my lover. I was the thing that needed to be protected and wasn’t.”
Aurnia still fixed her gaze up at me, but there was something different in her eyes. The anger flickered. Hesitated.
“If you stay with me, you won’t go to art school,” I shouted at her as the rain fell around us and the cars passed, indifferent as the rest of the fucking world. “I can tell you that much.”
“You went to art school,” Aurnia said in a low tone.
She was already second-guessing. Already seeing the real me behind the curtain. Already understanding. This was good.
“Oh, but I didn’t, my love,” I said cruelly.
“But—”
“I lied,” I hissed. “I lied to you. I lied to Rian. I lived with Rian on campus and lied every single day. I called him my best friend and to this day I keep this lie like a locket around my throat.”
Aurnia’s voice quivered as she said, “I don’t understand.”
I smiled darkly. “I want you to, my little thief.”
I told Aurnia about meeting Shannon. I could tell in her eyes as I described my feelings for my high school art teacher that she felt those same feelings about me: luckiness to have found me, conviction that she was made to be with me, deafness when I tried to tell her how wrong it was. It had all been the same with Shannon.
I told Aurnia about the hope Shannon gave me. A chance to get out of my shitty town. A chance to improve myself, make something of myself. A chance to escape violence and drugs and a dead fucking end in life. It was Shannon who got me into art school. Who helped me win that scholarship to pay for it. Who dreamed bigger dreams for us than I’d ever dared of dreaming myself. I told Aurnia how I mistook that hope for love.
I didn’t give her a chance to protest that with us it was different. Because it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. I went straight into telling her about that night. That night we were supposed to leave for Limerick. That night I found instead of her waiting at the door, a note. That night I wandered through the halls of that party with the last of the innocence I would ever have in the world. That night I swung open that door to find her naked. Writhing. Moaning. To find Nick inside of her.
“Your Nick,” I said.
Aurnia was too stunned to speak.
“Don’t you see?” I asked, laughing bitterly. “Even the villain in our stories is the same.”
I told her how I fought Nick. My leg threatened to collapse underneath me as I recalled how he stabbed it and then, when I was down, he broke it. We both ended up in the hospital that night. But only one of us ratted. Only one of us lost a scholarship, an admission spot, a chance to get out. Only one of us had a love ruined. A life ruined.
“I have nothing because of Shannon,” I said, spitting out her name because it burned on my tongue even then. “She gave me everything only to rip it all away. And that’s worse. That’s always worse than never having anything at all.”
I wondered if Aurnia could see that I had loved Shannon. That she had been the single pure, gentle ray of light in my dark world. And that love had callused over like all my other wounds.
“I don’t want to do that to you,” I said, shaking my head till it made me dizzy. “Do you see now? Do you understand now? I don’t want to, but I will. I can’t stop myself. I’ll never be able to stop myself. You have to stop me, Aurnia. You have to save yourself. You have to get away!”
Aurnia pushed herself slowly to her feet. Her chin was against her chest. Her wet hair fallen over her face. She lifted her head and stared up at me.
And punched me in the face.
