Page 198 of Nyx

Hatred eats at my gut. Hatred for my dad, hatred for my mom, hatred for every adult who didn't help before things got so bad they had to end the way they did.

Notice that.

The sound of Slick's voice fills my mind.

I do my best to fight it. That isn't something I want to fucking deal with right now, but the flashes of memory won't stop pelting me like a hailstorm.

I swallow, tears of rage burning the backs of my eyes.

I ruined everything because of him. In my efforts to save my mother, I let him destroy me, something I still would've gladly done, knowing what I know now.

It's the hatred that remained in her that hurt the most.

She knew long before I did that I was the same, that I'd destroy every good thing in my life.

Notice that.

I growl, kicking out and knocking over a rolling tray of tools, but I don't open my eyes.

I squeeze them tighter, my head beginning to hurt from the effort.

Blood coats my hands, the red staining everything around me. It's on my clothes, the warmth of it burning my skin as I look over.

My mother sobs over his body, pressing her shaking hands to his wounds as if her efforts could bring him back to life. She has to know I didn't stop until I knew he was gone, but it doesn't stop her from trying.

"You destroy everything you touch!" she screams at me, her body coated in a layer of his blood, covering her own wounds he created before I stepped in.

This isn't a memory but some form of recreation of events, but I can't seem to pull myself out of it. I've done enough therapy to know it's a way for my mind to punish me, to slide my own beliefs into action to fortify my reasoning for who I have become.

"You'll destroy her too!" she sobs. "If you love her, you'll leave her alone."

Notice that.

I cringe, wanting to reject her words, needing to have something good in my life that isn't stained with the blood of my past.

I can't deny the emotion she's accused me of having.

Love.

It has always been such an out-of-reach concept to me. My mother loved my father despite the abuse. I wanted no part of whatever that was.

It wasn't love. It was a toxic dependency, despite the abuse.

Slick's voice in my head sounds like a voice of reason, but it's not as strong as the walls I've built around myself, an effort to defend my own person from harm as well as a way to keep me from hurting others who don't deserve it.

I love her.

Images of Juliet flash.

Her smile.

Her laughter.

The way her eyes sparkle when she spots me across the room.

The tip of her breasts and the way they rise up and down when she's aroused.

The slickness between her thighs that left a spot on the bed when I moved her last night.