Page 1 of Vicious Hearts

1

ARIADNE

There are so many different ways to kill a person. You could use a sword, or a gun. A machete, or rope. You could even resort to physical violence using your own bare hands.

Ongoing physical, mental or even psychological abuse could all, in one way or another, kill a person. But the easiest and most common weapon you could use to kill someone is the tongue. It’s also the most dangerous. The absolute bloodiest of them all.

Four words. Four simple words. That’s all it took to kill me.

Four words. Each word on its own is inconsequential. Meaningless. But those same four words strung together are the deadliest I’ve ever heard.

I.

Don’t.

Love.

You.

The words reverberate in my ears over and over again, until time stands still and I stop breathing. My heart stops beating. It’s just another nail in my already half-way in the ground coffin. Just another reminder that I’m not loved. I’m not lovable and I’m unwanted. My father didn’t love me enough to stay and my mother drank herself into oblivion once he was gone. She never saw me again. Never saw me through the haze of her drunken stupor. Deserted and unloved.

Rand’s voice echoes in my head, like the beat of a distant drum. His words slice at my heart. They’re poison running through my veins, siphoning every last shred of hope I had for a future with him. My body hums with a shiver that resembles an earthquake, and I think at any given moment, my heart could just give out and I will go floating to the ground.

I have to get out of here. If I’m not wanted, if I’m not loved, there is no place for me here. So I turn to leave. My feet hit the floor and I race down the hallways, my dirty sneakers leaving skid marks in their wake. I slam against the elevator panel, willing the cabin to arrive before I crumble to the ground and bleed out on the tiles. It is no consolation that I am in a hospital; that wouldn’t help. I was as good as dead, and no doctor would be able to resuscitate me. Not when one of their own had killed me.

When the elevator takes too long to arrive, I slide away and skid past a waiting room, where curious onlookers look up at me, no doubt surprised by my loud rapid breaths filling the silence. I walk away, fumbling with my tote bag as it slides down my shoulder and weaves itself around my arm uncomfortably. Strangling me.

A nurse walks past, stops and says something I don’t hear, then stands watching me as I hurry down the hallway, picking up speed. I hear her calling after me, telling me to hold on. Something about me not looking good. I know I don’t look good; Rand’s been telling me for two years.

I liked myself better when I was fat. I was a different person then. Funnier, wittier, livelier. Not so serious. I lost weight for Rand; his constant hounding and bullying about my eating habits and the fat I was still carrying around finally got to me. I went on a strict diet, which saw me eating less and working out five times a week. All for him. On weekends if we went out for coffee (only almond milk for me), Rand would shoot me a look of disgust if he saw me look lovingly at a doughnut. And I would be filled with shame that my culinary desires would get the better of me.

Fat shaming; always the fat shaming. Until I started to shred myself to pieces trying to be who he wanted me to be.Stupid.

I lost the weight, but my sense of being went right along with it. After the weight loss, he focused on something new. My clothes were too frumpy or dowdy or didn’t show enough skin. It was never enough, and I could never measure up to the ideal image of me that he had in his mind. And I, being the unloved fool that I was, wanted nothing more than his approval. So, I lost the weight and changed my clothes. I cut my hair and got the damn highlights, but there was no way I was migrating from brown to blonde hair. And the last thing I’d done was get contacts. Green contacts. Because the narcissist had a thing for green eyes. As displayed earlier. Exhibit A.

I feel like such a fool. How could I not have seen this coming? What could I have done differently? I’m kicking myself as I run through the narrow hallways of the hospital, riddled with guilt and shame as I struggle to hold it together. I tell myself that I can’t fall apart. I have to stay strong.

Rand always hated it when I cried. Thought it was pathetic and weak that people displayed so much emotion.

Sociopath. Narcissist. Moron. They’re just some of the words that pop into my head now as my mind plays tricks on me. It’s blaming me. It’s telling me what a fool I am for not seeing the obvious. What was so obviously right in front of my very own eyes the whole time we were together.

Two years. I gave him two years of my life that I would never get back. Two years of him pretending to love me, when all he wanted was a show pony that would be there whenever the need arose. Unloved and unwanted. Used.

I zoom down the last corridor and through the hospital lobby, pushing through the revolving door in my desperate bid for air. I’m in such a hurry that I narrowly avoid colliding with someone, scraping past their shoulder instead. I mumble an apology as I emerge from the hospital, my mouth gaping as I take in air. I feel eyes on me, curious eyes behind me, but I don’t dare turn back. Instead, I just keep going, running away so death cannot catch up to me.

2

CALEPH

There’s fire and ice everywhere as a tiny meteor comes hurtling out of nowhere and smacks into me like hell on wheels. The area around me is sparking with shockwaves; short, abrupt spurts of electricity that pierce my skin, setting me alight.

There’s an angry little spitfire – cluttered and clumsy – mumbling what sounds like an apology before she flees just as quickly as she appears. She’s acting like she’s leaving the scene of a crime, and maybe she is, so I make way and let her pass. I’d never consciously stand in the way of someone committing a crime. Not my style.

I watch her as she turns and runs away, this bat out of hell, then watch with an unusual level of interest as her handbag goes skating across the ground, the contents unceremoniously dumped on the concrete walkway. She curses rather loudly, then stomps her foot in irritation, like a child who hasn’t gotten their way. I hear her huff from where I stand before she crouches and hurriedly scrapes her belongings together, throwing them into her bag quickly.

“Boss?”

Manny comes to stand beside me, curiously following my gaze to the woman. It’s extremely unusual for me to take an interest in anything other than my work. And this one small act, stopping to watch something as mundane as a woman losing her shit over the bad day she’s having, has me wondering if I’ve lost my mind.

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