I remain still, observing her voice for a hint of deceit, a hole in her story. There’s nothing but innocent cluelessness.
It’s hard not to lash out, not at her, but with a general sense of rage. I want to smash that fucking cd player, throw lamps, punch a wall. But I can’t, I have to stay cool. She shouldn’t have to see that, she’s seen enough of my putrid hate.
This is a fuckup that cannot be made right. Even if I tell her everything now, how can I look her in the eye and tell her all this time, I have been blackmailing her for nothing? That I was so blinded by fury that I didn’t consider the fact that her name was dragged into something she might never have been a part of? It was never virtuous of me to do what I did, but it was just. I thought eventually if she found out who we were she would understand. She might be angry, but she’d understand why Jude and I were so fucked up. I could try and rationalize with her. She’d understand why we felt she had to pay. Now there is no understanding. If I could bring Tripp back to life and kill him again right this second, I would. I bet that fucker is laughing in hell right now.
I am a killer. I planned to slit her throat with a serrated hunting knife. I dreamt about the look of terror in her eyes in her last few seconds of life as warm blood spurted from her neck. But like that stupid kid I once was, I got caught up in an illusion: that I am normal, that I can be with someone like Mia. In a way, Jude was right, I was allowing myself to get caught up in some sort of fantasy. Jude understands who I really am.
I am good for two things: scheming and fucking.
I was an idiot to think Mia would ever want anything more once she learns the truth. She’ll hate my fucking guts. Even the “truth” I planned to tell her would have to be a lie. I was never going to tell her about my plan to kill her, swapping out her birth control, and the one thing above all that she could never look past. If I told her that, she would want me dead.
There is no debt to be paid. She’s safe now. Trying to get her pregnant...what was I thinking? I’m not a father. I don’t create. I destroy. That kid would end up just as fucked up as Jude and me. I thought creating a child was what I needed to do to save her and make things up to Jude, but there’s nothing to save her from. Mia’s innocent. All debts have been paid.
In fact, now I owe her.
She deserves better than me. She deserves better than a psychopath as a boyfriend and father to her child. She deserves better than for her womb to be used to satisfy the maternal urges of a damaged, vengeful woman. She needs the life she had before I came into the picture and fucked it all up.
This changes everything.
We are back to square one. There is no reason for me to be in her life any longer.
I need to set her free.
I am a destroyer. I am the desecrator of hopes and dreams. It’s time to go back to what I do best and end this little paradise Mia thinks we have created. For her sake. Maybe I can do this one good thing. I can save Mia the way I couldn’t save Jude.
All this time, I wielded my sword of vengeance with a shield of self-righteousness. Even collateral damage, I told myself, was still justified, because it wasn’t my fault, but the fault of their loved one who had betrayed me.
But the truth is, I just like to hurt people. I am a predator. I hunt for sex, money, and pleasure. I only do things that make me feel good. This vendetta stopped being about justice a long time ago. I am no longer human. I don’t have a soul.
I have been collecting on a debt from Mia that she never owed.
Fiona Apple – Get Gone
Is it possible Tax could be everything I need in a man? He has the fire that burns me and awakens me. That was the thing I had been looking for, and it is so uniquely hard to find. We are all told to snuff that side of us. It’s immoral, it’s vile, it’s sick. But something about Tax is feral. He has all the trappings of a civilized man: wealth, material possessions, good taste. But the hidden part of him, it’s untamed, untouched by convention, much like a boy raised by wolves. He turns me into that savage animal too, and I fucking love it.
But I need more than that. I need to know that he sees me. Despite all the urges we may act out, he doesn’t really want to hurt me. It’s a mating dance, full of teeth gnashing, and growling, and biting. But, when it’s all over, I need a person there who will protect me, and care for my well-being just as I would do for him.
I felt it was always there. That hint of something other than just animalistic sexual rage. He cared, but he didn’t want to. Now, though, he’s becoming less greedy with it, putting his neck out to another beast who could rip out his jugular. I don’t hold any power over him like he has over me, but if he does care, I could break him in other ways.
I don’t want to break him though, I want to build him. I have found a connection that is nearly impossible to find and I want to make it better. I don’t care how we got here any longer, I just like where we are going. And it means I am willing to let go of those circumstances if things go the way I hope. He is a bad man, and I think he can become a version of a good man. But if I want a bad man, I understand I will need to accept some bad things.
That’s why lying here on my rug in the middle of my living room floor, after Tax’s sudden and brutal attack, feels right. He’s following the hard with the soft. He fills up the emptiness left behind when he pillages me.
I soak in his scent. It’s like a drug, a hint of his masculinity lined with the warmth of musk, pine, and vanilla. He’s asking me about myself, he’s talking to me. He’s seeing me.
And then something changes. Our subdued conversation, under the glow of a single lamp, halts. Tax tenses underneath me.
Is it because I touched his scars?
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
“I need to get up.”
“Okay...”
Tax grabs his pants and shirt and disappears into the bathroom. He emerges minutes later, fully dressed, his face grim.
“Are you leaving?” I ask.
No answer.
I sit up, looking for something to cover myself with. His frost chills my exposed skin. “What’s wrong? This is where you tell me what you are thinking, Tax. Remember what we talked about? No just up and leaving.”
Tax grabs his phone off a side table and slides it in his pocket, his terse movement is a clear signal that he does not want to engage in discussion.
“Something is obviously wrong,” I say, stunned by the sharp change in his mood.
“Enough, Mia,” Tax says coldly. “Stop with the interrogation.”
My stomach churns with anxiety. How could things have turned so quickly?
I watch in silence as he cracks his neck and adjusts his cuffs. I hope he’ll start laughing and tell me this is one of his deadpan jokes, though I know it’s not. Instead, he clears his throat and looks down at me.
“Mia, I am officially releasing you from the arrangement. You don’t owe me anything any longer. Your reputation is safe with me. I will have all of the videos destroyed. You’re free.”
This is a good thing. This is what I wanted. So then, why does my chest feel like Tax just kicked it in?
“I don’t understand...so does this mean we’ll just keep seeing each other like normal people would? No more Tuesdays?”
“That’s not how this works.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is no arrangement. We don’t see each other any longer. At all.”
Now those words feel like a battering ram to the chest.
“There’s something else going on here...” I don’t want to sound desperate, but it’s hard to contain the fluttering that travels from my heart to my stomach. “You said...you said you wouldn’t go anywhere. Remember? On the boat? We were supposed to be here for each other? The video was a last resort. We agreed the blackmail didn’t even really matter anymore because we both weren’t going anywhere.”
“You’re free now. You don’t need me. I was staying to protect you. You won’t need that any longer.”
“Nothing was ever fine, Mia!”
Tears stream down my cheeks as the fear of total abandonment surges through me. “You care about me. I know you do. Why are you doing this? Why are you leaving? You came here tonight to be with me. What changed since you arrived? I don’t understand! Was it something I said?” I try to think back to our topics of discussion, but the conversation moves too quickly for me focus.
“Mia, I came here to fuck you one last time. I already knew I would release you, but I wanted to use you anyway. I used you. I wanted to invade your home and come in you one last time because that shit turns me on. I promised you I would hurt you. I fucking promised, Mia. You didn’t listen. I warned you.”
The booming newfound optimism I felt for our relationship deflates when he utters those words. Had I been that big of a sucker all along? Would I continue to believe that he was doing all this for some greater good? Why should I believe that he is anything other than a soulless sadist?
It doesn’t even matter if he cares about me or not. Because it’s clear that he hurts the people he cares about and he hurts the people he hates. For Tax, it all ends the same way. Tax is poisonous, and if you are unfortunate enough to touch him in any way, his poison seeps into your life.
Tax told me he would hurt me one way or the other. I didn’t listen. I could have tuned out, let him use my body, and then he would have vanished and our interactions would have become a distant memory, but instead I became a willing participant. I invested myself into Mia and Tax, and like a con artist, he’s running off with everything I put in.
I hate him. I hate him so much for doing this to me. For making me become a lone beast. How could I go on without him? How could I have sex with another man? Go on some lame dinner with yet another online date? How could I pretend to be like everyone else after being with Tax? It’s like never being able to taste again, smell again. When Tax left, he would be taking those things with him. My world would become dull again.
But I am tired of begging, trying to make him want all of me. As soon as I release that need, the part of me that withered, rises from the ashes like a phoenix, giving me the strength to do what I don’t want to.
If Tax really doesn’t want me, then he can go to hell.
“Why, Tax? Why did you come to me in the first place? You said I owed you. For what?”
“It’s no longer relevant.”
“The hell it isn’t!”
He looks down, and one who didn’t know any better might think it’s with shame, but I don’t think he has any. When he looks back up it’s as if he’s put on a mask, with black eyes and a cruel grin to match.
“Mia, there never was a debt. I saw you, I wanted you, and I had you. I thought it would be fun to fuck with you in the meantime.”
“I don’t believe you. You think I don’t know you, Tax, but I do. I see right through your bullshit.”
“Mia, you can tell yourself that if it makes you feel any better. Choosing you was random. There was no reason, or rhyme, other than I like the way you looked and I wanted to shove my cock inside of you. This was all because I felt like it. And now, I am done here.”
“Well go then. I hope you enjoyed yourself, you son of a bitch,” I yell at the specimen of physical male beauty encasing a rotten core. I stagger to my feet, trying to gain some semblance of control. “But do us both a favor and don’t pretend you ever protected me. You only give a shit about yourself. You’re not capable of caring for another human being. You are a parasite. You use and then when you are done, you’ll likely find someone else to suck the life out of. That’s the only way you can survive, isn’t it? Sucking the life out of everyone around you. Because alone, you are hollow.”
I think I see a flicker in his eye, the slightest twitch indicating my words might have had some effect. But I am sick of projecting my humanity onto him, and I won’t do it this time.
He doesn’t respond and simply turns away, walking to my front door. He stops and without turning says: “Mia, I am giving you your freedom back. You never had a choice, now you do.”
“This isn’t a choice,” I hiss, my face contorting with disgust. I’ve never been one to enjoy hurting people, but right at this moment, my words are like venom and I want to spit them at Tax, like a cobra. To hurt him like he hurt me. And I want him to realize that I won’t let him forget me. Sure, he can leave, but I will haunt his motherfucking ass until I have answers. “I’ve never had a choice with you, and I still don’t. You are a coward, Tax. You might mistake my kindness for weakness, or my understanding for foolishness, but you have me all wrong. You are a bully. You might be tall, and strong, and have money, but inside you are frail. You don’t have the balls to allow yourself to get hurt. I put it all out there. I tell you how I feel, even if it means I could get hurt. I am not weak Tax, but I refuse to hurt people to make myself feel strong. And I will never let anyone take my ability to care for people. That includes you, you asshole. I know you are lying. There is a reason you came for me, and if you won’t tell me, I’ll find out my damned self.”
My words burn my chest and lips as I spew them like lava. Tax keeps reeling me in and throwing me back out into the loneliness of a dark ocean. This time he’s going to let me drift with no hope of retrieval.
All my life I have been silently strong. Kind to people, but never afraid to tell them how I feel, if that meant giving a compliment or standing up for myself. All this time I was so afraid of Tax disappearing on me, afraid to lose this twisted thing we had, or afraid he might expose me, that I walked on eggshells. But now, he’s leaving no matter what, and I want him to feel the pain of isolation that he causes me when he toys with my emotions like a frayed old rag doll. Let him feel some of the hurt this time, if he’s even capable.
He stays with his back to me, facing the door, for a moment, as if he is absorbing the impact of my words.
In that stillness, I feel him just as I felt him the first time he showed me his scars. It’s the humanity I always uncover in him no matter how much he tries to hide it under his black cloak of hate. “Mia, trust me. You don’t wanna know.”
He opens the door, steps out, and lets it close behind him.
Just like that.
He’s gone.
Nine Inch Nails – Only
What have I done?
Mia did nothing. Nothing. And I almost killed her. I can’t even stand to look at her right now, knowing who I am, what I could have done. I stared at myself in the mirror of her bathroom for a while, resisting the urge to shatter my reflection. A dark, heavy feeling oozed over me like tar as I thought about the person she once knew and who he had become: shame.
I had never really felt that before. As a kid, I blurted out things that other people thought harsh or inappropriate. Despite getting picked on or beat up, I didn’t try to be someone I wasn’t. I never cared about what people thought. I did what I wanted to do and answered to no one. But I felt ashamed as I listened to Mia, as she faintly recollected her brief friendship with Sil and all those times she offered me food because she knew I was hungry and didn’t want to embarrass me. That she saw past my exterior, designed to isolate and intimidate. That was the girl I fell in love with years ago, and she is the same person, not adulterated by one horrendous act as I had thought. She has always been the person I had hoped she was.
I tucked a knife behind my back, fucked her, blackmailed her, dreamed of carving her up, told her she meant nothing to me over and over. She has surpassed all of my expectations: it’s me who is the disappointment. She says she imagines Sil is successful, living a happy life somewhere, having defeated all the odds. But I haven’t. I am a killer, a sadist, and a con artist.
And so, I knew I had to hurt her one last time, so she would be free from me and the mess I have brought her into.
I would tell Jude to let it go, and we would move forward. There is nothing left of that night except the ashes of devastation Jude and I left behind. Mia could go and live a normal life as if I never happened. As if that night never happened, because it didn’t happen to her. She had nothing to do with it. She has no fucking clue.
Except there is one huge fucking problem: the possibility that I may have already gotten her pregnant. Fuck. Father. That word. That disgusting word. I don’t even know if I have conceived a child with Mia and I have already fucked up as a father in countless ways.
The odds of her already being pregnant have got to be slim, but if she is I’ll make sure Mia and our child are taken care of. But the only way I can let Mia be free of me and Jude is to go cold turkey from her. If Jude finds out she has a niece or nephew, she will absolutely find a way to be a part of that child’s life. After all, that was the goal of getting Mia pregnant: to keep her alive and make her pay Jude back with a life. But now I know she owes Jude not a fucking thing. And if Mia is pregnant, Jude will latch onto that child like it is her own. If I am going to let Mia be free, I have to go all in, no matter the sacrifice.
The best thing for Mia, and our possible child, is for me to disappear from her life. She’ll find someone else (whose face I would want to crush), someone who can be a normal father to our child, because she will always be at risk as long as I am around. I convinced myself the risk was something she had acquired through her cruel and senseless behavior years ago. Now I know better. It’s time to man the fuck up.
The logical side of my brain prays she isn’t pregnant so she can really start fresh. And yet, in some deep corner of my psyche, I still want her to be pregnant, so that I am always connected to her in some way. So that no matter if she ends up with some normal guy, I will always own a piece of her. And some part of me knows that the best parts of me and the best parts of Mia can make something — someone — amazing. Mia will always be the one, even if I can’t have her.
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