Page 289 of Vicious Saint
A pang shoots like a fireball through my chest, fleshing open the wounds Hendrix just managed to close.
It’s too much, too fucking much, and I know if I want to get through the conversation it has to be without the brutal reminder.
“Yes…but please don’t ask for more details about her…I can’t.”
“I won’t. Promise.”
“One minute she was whining…the next I was being told to paint her red…”
“Paint her…red?” Hendrix asks way too curiously for a girl finding out her boyfriend listens to sinister voices inside his head.
“No idea…that was just the first thing I heard when I blacked out. So I did. All the way down to her Doc McStuffins doll.”
“Doc McStuffins?” Hendrix asks with even more emphasis, proving she’s either really good at hiding judgment, or she is genuinely trying to understand my fucked up head.
“That show was her favorite…took the doll to and from school every day.” My throat burns as I swallow the tears inching to the surface. “She didn’t let it go the entire time I was attacking her.”
“Oh my God…Saint.” Hendrix whimpers, hugging my waist. “I’m so sorry this happened to you both.”
You both…what an absurd thing to fucking say.
As if the violence I inflicted was onmetoo.
What else is absurd? The fact hearing Hendrix’s apology is making the tears I was fighting back stream down my face.
“Why would you feel sorry for me?” I swipe away at my eyes. “I was the piece of shit who almost killed her.”
Hendrix doesn’t turn around, and fuck am I grateful for it.
“Because your innocence was stolen from you that day just as much as that little girl’s. You didn’t want to hurt anyone…you were just…”
“Sick.” I finish for her. “Go ahead…you can say it.”
Hendrix’s silence is my fucking enemy, until she responds, “We’re all sick in our own ways, Saint. Yours is just…louderthan others.”
One very accurate and specific way to put my monster for sure.
I laugh, but with nothing but disgust. “Now you sound like my psychiatrist.”
“Were you ever…diagnosed?”
“With a slew of shit that involves medication…” I shrug. “None worth listing because I’m gonna end up dying with him anyway.”
“He’s not real, Saint. You have to know that.”
You have to know that.
It’s amazing how many times someone can hear the same fucking words and never believe them.
“Doesn’t matter…he’s been haunting me ever since.”
“It absolutely does matter,” Hendrix insists. “Self-perception is everything…something you make sure to remind me of whenever I’m in doubt.”
I say nothing…mostly because my shoulders are shaking in ways they haven’t since I was a kid.
Whatever space Hendrix was giving me by not turning around is closed in seconds as she twists and climbs on me to straddle my waist.
“Listen to me, Saint,” she says, all business, using her bandaged hand to dry my face. “You may be sick. But not broken. Not unless you choose to be.”
