Page 49 of Her Sloth

“LEAVE!” I shout at her.

But instead of leaving, she just stands there and looks at me with her dark eyes, daring me.

I shake my head slowly, fighting the inner demon that always wins as I am about to do the one thing I have perfected over the years: driving everyone who comes too close away.

“Cass, the untouchable girl from the streets,” I say in a derogatory tone, pursing my lips. “Hiding the scratched ego and broken dreams in a purpose for a girl who’s fucking dead. Desperately trying to make things right because she can’t handle feeling the guilt. Pathetic.”

I see the hurt happening in real time in her eyes. As it should. I want to hurt her so much it pains me.

I have to hurt her because otherwise I’d have to acknowledge that she is right.

And I am not strong enough to do that.

“You’re trying to drive me away,” she says, closing the little distance that was between us.

She is too close.

Has seen too much.

Knows too much.

It is too close.

Too tight.

Too suffocating⁠—

It is exactly what that part in me, the one I buried deep within me, wants. And because it can never get what it wants, I am longing for the only thing I know solves the problem:

Violence.

Crossed boundaries.

Fucked up shit.

“Because I am the problem,” I say darkly. “Because the only thing I can think about right now is that I want you to hit me until I bleed, choke me until I can’t breathe anymore, destroy me until I can’t feel all the pain I have in me.”

And because she doesn’t react, I lean in on her, my fingers trailing over her neck as I whisper with a dangerously silent voice, “You better leave, because I am this close—“ I lean in until my lips are half an inch from hers, “to doing the same to you if you don’t get your ass out of here.”

She doesn’t say a word.

Doesn’t move.

Doesn’t avert her eyes.

The only thing that happens is her chest breathing getting deeper with her chest heaving up and down.

Her lips part.

Her warm breath caresses over my skin.

No.

I slowly shake my head as I realize that instead of driving her away, I have turned her on.

This cannot be.

It cannot⁠—