Page 46 of The Pretty Psycho

"Vega," she mumbled. "You're not a monster."

"Oh, trust me," I huffed. "I definitely am. You have no idea what I've done. You've no idea what I had to do to survive in this world."

"And that's exactly why I'm saying that you're not a monster. You're a survivor. You're a fighter. Yes, you did some fucked-up things, but we've all done them. There's not a single person out there who could say they were completely innocent. Not even me," she whispered that last part, making me truly look at her.She seemed ashamed of something, but I didn't want to push her to tell me what it was.

Besides, this wasn't the time or place for that. I just wanted her to know the real truth.

"I was sent here to kill Adrian, Yolanda," I blurted out, braving the words to come out. "I was sent here because it was supposed to be my last mission, my little ticket to freedom. And I failed. I fell for the man I was supposed to kill, almost letting him destroy me."

"But he didn't destroy you."

"No." I shook my head. "Not yet. But I'm terrified that I'll lose myself if I let him in. I'm unable to remember which part of me is who I truly am and which part of me is what The Schatten wanted me to be."

"The Schatten?"

"The organization I worked for," I clarified. "Which is kind of funny, because they actually sent me here hoping I would fail."

"No way."

"They wanted me dead, Yolanda." Her eyes widened, shock washing over her face. "And I almost fell into their trap."

"Does, um." She cleared her throat. "Does Adrian know?"

I nodded. "He does. But that's beside the point."

"Then what is the point?"

I took a deep breath, staring at the wall behind Yolanda. "The point is that I don't know who I am without that world. The point is that I am terrified I would lose myself if I allowed myself to feel anything but rage. The point is that I want to trust Adrian, I want to let him in, but I don't fucking know how. And now I sound like a fucking parrot, but that's the truth. Yesterday he snatched me away, taking care of me, worrying about me, and today I basically took all he had done and threw it in his face. He did some things," I continued. "Things that had me running away just before that fire."

"Yeah, when I found you, right?"

"Correct. Rationally, I know why he did it. Why he held the information he had as a secret, but I also don't know how to move past that. I thought I'd be able to. I thought I was stronger than this, but I'm not. I don't know how to trust him." And that's where the problem lay.

Yolanda shuffled on the bed, moving closer to me and taking my hand in hers. "Here's what I think, and please hear me out before trying to argue with me."

I laughed, seeing the mischievous look in her eyes. "Okay."

"Adrian is obsessed with you, Vega. Now, I don't know if it's healthy or not, but the man was out of his mind while you were gone. He was like a ticking time bomb and none of us wanted to be around him. Hell, on the night of the fire he tried running inside because he wanted to get to you." My heart shuddered at that. "But they stopped him. Trust me when I tell you, he is mad about you. I have never seen it directed at me and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't just a little bit jealous, because every single one of us wants to have someone looking at us the way he looks at you. He fucked up, I get it, but so did you." Ouch. "You both had a life before you met each other and you both had shit you had to do in order to survive. Trust me when I tell you, you don't want to push him away. Well, actually," she smiled, "I don't think you'd be able to push him away even if you tried to. He let you go with me because he probably knew you needed time to process things, but mark my words—I'm giving him maybe an hour before he comes barging in here, demanding for you to go with him. And I think you probably should go. I think you deserve what he has to offer, because that man wants only what's best for you."

"But—"

"Na-uh," she tsked. "I'm not finished. What you went through," she stammered. "What you went through was terrible.I cannot imagine what you're feeling now, and if you're all over the place, then, well, maybe you need to allow yourself to be all over the place. Maybe you need to allow yourself to feel a bit unbalanced, but you'll find your footing again. You'll get back to the way you were before, but you need time. And you need people in your corner. Don't shut him out because you're too terrified to see what is happening between you two."

"Which is?" I asked like a fucking coward, because I needed somebody else to say it out loud.

"Love, Vega. What's happening between the two of you is love. A man doesn't go that crazy over a woman he doesn't love. He wouldn't lose his mind over some chick he didn't care about. He. Fucking. Loves. You." My eyes stung, and as much as I hated her for voicing it like this, I appreciated it. "So don't punish him for things that didn't even happen yet. You never know, maybe the version of you that's going to come alive while you're with him is better than all these other versions of you from before, but you'll never know if you don't try."

"I just," I mumbled. "I don't want to have my heart broken."

Yolanda smiled, her fingers tightening around mine. "Having our hearts broken is part of growing up, my friend. If they never break we would never know how to mend them. And we would never learn not to go toward the things that are hurting us. So, allow yourself to get broken, at least once. Allow yourself to grieve the versions of you that no longer serve you and live your life without the fear of getting broken from time to time, Vega. You need to live. You are this fearless warrior, but when it comes to matters of the heart you harbor so much fear, and I don't want to see you living your life like that. Because living your life halfway is not living. It's only existing."

Goddamn her, she was right. She was so fucking right, and judging by the tears rolling down my cheeks, she knew exactly what to say to open the dam I was holding on to.

I was terrified that once I gave my heart to Adrian he would simply break it, and that fear didn't come because of him. That fear came because every single person in my life so far had either disappeared or betrayed me. It wasn't fair to him if I continued punishing him for all the things other people did, but that didn't mean I had to just dive headfirst into a relationship with him.

First step would be actually talking to him, which I didn't know how to do. It was easier fighting with him than telling him all my fears. I loved control and I knew that in a fight I could control the narrative. If I started talking about all these other things, I would have to tap into my emotions and those… Those I didn't have control over.

My body shook from the force of my sobs coming out now, and before I could compose myself, Yolanda had me wrapped in her arms, comforting me when it felt like I would fall apart.

---