Page 17 of My Sweetest Obsession
One long leg propped up, exposing her glistening cunt still filled with the evidence of how I took her right in that spot.
“Fuck…”
My scream of frustration echoes around the studio and off the brick and steel the same way her cries did that night and the next morning, but it was so quickly replaced by her sobs of despair in this same space that it’s tainted now.
No amount of trying to shake away those visuals or sounds from my head has worked. Ivy’s pain is so deeply embedded in my soul that it’s become a part of me I can feel with every agonizing breath I take.
That same demon that threatened to control me last night crawls across my back, settling on my shoulders with its agonizing weight. Whispering in my ear that it will help end the suffering and silence the voices in my head. Promising it can ease torture and wipe away the memories…
Only, I know it’s a lie.
One I allowed myself to believe for a long time.
One that almost convinced me last night.
One that is so damn tempting when I’m here with darkness and regret as my companions, when nothing seems right and I know that it never will be again.
Too much has happened.
Too many mistakes.
Too many lies.
Too many deeds that can’t be undone.
My eyes land on the huge canvas where I made love to Ivy for the first time. Every drop of paint screams in my head. Every splatter makes my chest tighten. Each smear spread across the surface drives a knife straight into my heart.
It represents everything I ever wanted but never deserved. The culmination of me finally succeeding in taking what I always wanted, what I craved more than life itself.
And she was everything I thought she would be and more.
I start trembling as tears pool in my eyes.
Because it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever created, and I’ll never be able to look at it again without knowing what it cost me.
It will always be a reminder of all the horrific things I did to get us to that point. I betrayed Drew. Lied to her. Stalked and watched while I lived in a dark hole of selfishness. Threatened and said horrible things I didn’t really mean. Then, when I should have left, when I should have let her grieve Drew’s loss and found somewhere I could have let myself crumble on my own, I was too selfish not to walk away. I let her need me. I let her kiss me. I let myself give in to all those cravings.
And I’ll never have her again.
I’ll never touch her, kiss her, hold her, or feel her come apart in my arms.
I’ll never get to tell her how sorry I am for everything I’ve put her through because she will never want to hear it.
Just like I don’t want to listen to the sinister voices in my head right now.
I try to shake them clear, squeezing my eyes closed and fisting my hands in my hair hard enough that my knuckles ache and my scalp stings. The pain there doesn’t do anything to alleviate that in my chest.
My phone dinging with an incoming message finally forces me to release my death-grip and make way over to the counter where I left it. Hope blooms for a brief moment that it might be Ivy. That she is reaching out to me, that last night wasn’t the end…but I know it’s likely Mom. And if I don’t respond to her, I know she will show up here worried, when that’s the last thing I want to cause her ever again.
Mom
Are you okay? I can be there in twenty minutes.
Despite how distressed I am tonight, her offer tugs the corners of my lips up. Because even though she has countless reasons to want nothing to do with me, to hate me, and want to stay far away, she still loves me. Somehow, she has the ability to separate what I’ve done from that commitment to me and her belief in who I am at my core—a good person. That little boy she raised to always do the right thing and to care about other people more than he did himself.
Even if she’s wrong.
At my core, I’m the person who chose himself over and over again. Who did wrong in more ways than anyone can count. I’m the one who should be gone from this world, not Drew.
