Page 135 of Wicked Sins

“I always did love that laugh of yours,” comes a deep voice from nearby.

Pressure on my chin. My head tilts back, and I stare at an upside-down version of Wayne.

Alice down the looking glass, through the rabbit hole. One pill makes me smaller, the other turns me into a fucking doll.

But I’m not quite a doll anymore, am I?

“He ffffucked me.”

Is that slurring voice mine? Who am I talking about?

Joah.

My eyes move away from Wayne’s face, scan a piece of the ceiling, the mantel.

My head snaps to the side. A dull aching pressure starts up on one side of my face. My mouth fills with liquid, and it tastes like warm pennies.

“Such a dirty little slut.”

Where is he, my Joah?

The last thing I remember is kissing him. How I wished that moment would never end. I’d been filled with hope, and love, and everything good in the world.

I’d never, ever felt that before.

Not until just then.

Of course, it couldn’t last.

I don’t know why, but I’ve never deserved to feel love.

And the universe was only too quick to balance the scales.

“I liked it.” Blood oozes from my mouth. I can’t feel it, but I know it’s leaving out the front because I’d be drowning if it was running down my throat.

My head lolls forward, and then there’s nothing but that copper-penny taste in my mouth.

I wish I could spit. I’d hack up everything and dirty up Wayne’s devilishly handsome face with a spray of blood and spit.

“Let’s play a last game. You up for that, Candy?”

He moves my head for me, positions me just right.

The world resolves into a fireplace, a chair, a coffee table, and a chessboard.

I blow a blood-bubble when I laugh, and that earns me another backhand. I don’t know if there’s more blood this time—my chin is on my chest, and it would all be running down my chest anyway.

“Wha’ ya gi’ me?” I mumble with numb lips.

Wayne’s body eclipses the fireplace. “Candy for my Candy.”

We laugh together, because that’s what we used to do. It’s coming back to me now, as if I could only recall these memories when I was in the same state as when they were created.

The present merges with the past, and it’s as if I’ve never left that moment. Drunk on hope, high on desperation…

I’d do anything to be this person, to keep living this life. I’d never had it this good, and it still rankles me that I’ve had to suffer like this.

It’s not just unfair. Unfair is when you lose your balloon at the carnival, or your ice cream succumbs to gravity, or a bird shits in your hair, or your cat gets hit by a car, but it doesn’t die immediately, and instead, it slowly wilts in front of your eyes until you have to say it can’t live anymore because it’s too much too bear.

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