Page 85 of Bring Me To My Knees

He should have killed me. I’m dying tonight anyway.

I hear someone before I see them. It’s dark after all, but I can hear their footsteps through the leaves on the ground.

“Go away,” I whisper.

“Marley?”

My blood runs cold. What is he doing out here?

“Why are you here, Clark?” I ask.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he says, walking over to where I’m lying on the ground.

“Go back to the fucking house,” I tell him, my voice hoarse.

I’m so fucking tired. I don’t have the strength to fight with him right now.

“Don’t fucking talk to me like that,” he says.

I sit up from the ground, narrowing my eyes in his direction.

“You don’t get to tell me how to speak, or how to feel. Go back to the fucking house.” My voice is louder now.

It’s breaking my fucking heart to even look at him right now. I’ve never experienced anything like this. I’ve never wanted to kill someone while also wanting to jump into their arms and lose myself in them.

“I’m sorry,” he says, defeated.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. Just leave me alone, please,” I beg, wiping tears as they fall.

“I have a lot to be sorry for. Most of it you don’t even know about.” He sighs, dropping his arms to his side.

“Go back to your fiancée. Please stop putting me through this.”

“Marley,” he starts, walking closer to me.

I’m up off the ground now, backing away.

“No.” I put my hand up to stop him.

I can’t let him get too close. That’s how we ended up where we are now. I let him get too close to me, and now I’m paying the ultimate price.

“Wait for me,” he whispers.

He’s in anguish. His voice is laced with pain, a pain so awful that if I weren’t looking right at him, I wouldn’t even recognize that it came from him.

“Wait for what? This is never going to happen. So much has happened now, we can’t erase the shit we’ve put each other through. We will never overcome this.” I throw my hands in the air to keep from yanking my hair.

It feels like I’m dying. My stomach has bottomed out. I can’t cry anymore, because there aren’t any tears left to cry.

“Marley, don’t do this,” he says, not even ashamed of the tears falling from his eyes.

He reaches for me, but I back away. I can’t let him touch me. Everything will be over.

“No, you can't do that. Don’t. Just go.” I put my fist up to my mouth.

“I can’t fucking live without you. Not now,” he roars.

I flinch, not because I’m scared of him, but because I’m scared that I’m going to go to him. It would be so easy to fall apart with each other.

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