Page 1 of Paper Thin Love

Prologue

Mila

I’m guilty.

I’m destined to have a tragic love story. I acknowledge it without resistance.

It’s possible I was born guilty, or it was just a sentence of my upbringing.

I was raised to be a ballerina, and every dancer knows the best ballets are destructive ones. Dances of anguish, trickery, love that can’t last, and death are what are memorable.

I saw the love of my life one day, unknowingly. It was love at first sight mixed with something too dark to be given a name.

I knew he was a devil, a fallen angel who made it his mission to damn those around him.

I knew, yet I allowed him to taint me.

I don’t know what that says about me; probably not too many good things.

I followed his guidance and got lost in the paints he shoved into my hands. The vivid shades swallowed me whole, just like he did.

Despite knowing he would never love me, the hopeless romantic in me held onto the hope of changing him.

Don’t all silly little girls think that?

The devil can’t be changed. You can tempt him, but so can other things.

I wasn’t enough. Perhaps I wasn’t damaged enough, or maybe I was too fragmented.

I’ll never know.

If our love story were a ballet, it would be famous for both its savagery and affection.It was a rose with thorns, just like every aspect of my life. The dancer and her pointe shoe. You see a beautiful shoe that allows the dancer to be graceful. Look beneath it, at the scarred flesh.You see a canvas with paint covering it; look at the artist who tortured themselves to purge their inner emotions onto it.

Our love was a tender, beautiful, yet scarred and mangled thing that both healed and destroyed me.

It’s true; the devil has broken me. He always does. That is how he was raised.

He also fixed me.

From the moment he glanced my way, he understood that I wasn’t whole. It terrified me. One look at me, and he knew I was nothing but scattered fragments lay wasted by the winds that ravaged my life.

Instead of stepping on the remnants of me, he began searching far and wide, tracking down all those minuscule, insignificant, shattered parts of my soul.

He found them. Glued them back together.

Only I wasn’t me again. He molded me into something new. Something that…helped me yet also trapped me in the mold I was raised in.

Tragedy.

Dancers have fantastic memories, and so do artists. We need them to create our art. I watched everything he did to me. I remembered how he tricked me, made me fall in love with him, and healed me, only to never acknowledge to the world what we had.

I watched.

I remembered.

I’ll do the same to him. You see, as a dancer and artist, I have the ability to take on roles, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. After all, our love is destined for failure and applause.

I’m going to make the devil feel what I felt when he left me.

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