Page 95 of Grave Love
I move the gurney to the crematory. I lie on the cold metal, imagining my own death. I go through each scenario: Blaze asphyxiating me while I drug myself. Blaze holding my hand as I shoot myself with a loaded gun. Blaze killing me while we’re fucking, exactly like he had promised.
Would I have wanted any of it?
Those visions mix until all I see are Blaze’s promising eyes.
You. Are. Mine,he had said.My little corpse.
The entrance door creaks like someone is about to enter. My heart pounds. I sit up, not bothering to hide my presence.
I just want to see him.
The wind whirrs against the windows, the closed doors sighing in protest.
It’s a breeze. Not him.
I turn on my side, the gurney squeaking with my weight, and I let it go. Toes curling. Shivering with each breath. My corded neck straining as the tears rush down, pooling on the metal surface, shining with my dark reflection.
I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m the one who walked out. I’m the one who pushed him away.
Why did I do this to myself?
Because you don’t deserve him,my inner voice says.You don’t deserve anything.
Blaze’s voice interrupts:You’re such a wreck. A beautiful fucking mess. You hear that, Ren? Until the day you die. For the days after. Until both of us are worm food and the world doesn’t remember us anymore. You. Are. Mine.
Anger tears into my soul. I howl into the darkness, screaming into the solitude. Blazeshould’vekilled me. It’s torture that he didn’t. At the same time, if he had killed me, I would’ve missed so muchmoreof him.
Instead, Blaze exposed me to his fullness, taught me what it felt like to ache for someone. Where everything is nothing and nothing is everything. Where I’m worth it. A place where I might not be a high-achieving granddaughter or a respectable fiancé, but a place where I stilldeservejoy. Where he sees me, even when I fail. Even when I push him away. Even when I still want to die.
What am I supposed to do now?
No matter how loud I scream, the tears don’t stop. I fall asleep in the mortuary, and when the morning comes, the crematory door is closed. As if Denise didn’t want to acknowledge my presence. As if I’m just another body, waiting to be burned in the retort.
Chapter35
Blaze
Every night,I wait outside of Ren’s bedroom window while she sleeps. I don’t enter. Once she’s dreaming, I slip inside and gaze down at her body.
She made her choice. All I can do is watch over her.
On her birthday, she goes to the mortuary. Though I jiggle the handle, ready to interrupt her old ritual, I think better of it.
She doesn’t need me.
I used to think she was my unlucky fourth victim. My fourth was her ex. That should’ve been my clue that I was losing control, but I ignored it. Then the fifth was some random girl. The sixth? My brother.
Ren won’t be the seventh, eighth, ninth, or tenth.
Eventually, light starts to surface, and I enter the mortuary. Ren left it unlocked, like she was waiting for someone to find her.
That’s stupid; she’s not waiting for me. I scowl at myself, for the stupid wishful thinking I’ve wrapped myself into yet again.
I find her asleep on the conveyor belt. Too tired to care about the consequences.
I close the door. Return to the window facing the parking lot. I bang on the window once, loud enough to wake her. Then I wait across the street, to the side of the margarita shack, out of sight.
A few minutes later, she stumbles out of the building, her eyes groggy with sleep.
