by Elena Monroe
Turning my attention to everyone around us, I gave them all a personal death stare until the ability to read the damn room blossomed in their hands. I wanted them to leave without me having to say it, and finally they got that message when they all drifted away from us.
Vic’s hand squeezed my shoulder on the way out like a sad excuse for a hug, not that I would be caught dead doing that in front of people.
Dragging the joint from my lips on an inhale, Eve sat down next to me still waiting for me to respond to the whys of what just happened. “Don’t like priests… wouldn’t be able to tell. Any particular reason?”
Unwilling to hand over my relief yet, I took another inhale, my hands steadier than I expected. Looking at the priest I caught his eyes. “Would you like to tell her why I stopped walking into churches? Or what happened to your predecessor? Why don’t you offer Hennessy to go with your assaults? Or why it stunted my development?”
I didn’t have the balls to glance at Eve, to take inventory of the damage I had just done by giving her the truths I wasn’t getting from her. The same truths I withheld sex for.
Holding his hand to his throat, he swallowed hard enough to almost hear through the silence when he shifted his eyes off mine to the floor. “I don’t think I - I don’t-” Stammering around his words, I watched him fumble with the truth.
Slicing through his missteps, I spoke for him, “I stopped walking into churches when I realized priests were in need of more saving than me. Blind leading the blind. Father Whatever-Your-Name-Is here has been the Clave’s go-to holy man for what? Ten years? It was after I killed the guy before him for stealing my innocence. Then whatever was left, he fucked it away until it was gone.”
“I’m sorry - Bowen, I didn’t-” his voice was hoarse as he stammered again, using his sleeve to catch his tears and any other liquid trying to drain from his body.
Eve shot up from the pew clearly having pieced the story together. I still felt the overwhelming need to say it when she turned around with tears in her eyes, staring down at me looking just as unhinged. Her sweater was slipping from her shoulder and the slip was showing through in a defiant way.
“Say it, Bowey. Say it.” She was twisting my words against me.
I debated shutting her down, reminding her that her truths come first. I watched her hand close around the monstrance when she actually scared me into sitting up straighter. “No point in saying what we all know, Evey.”
Climbing the few stairs up to where he was sitting, she held it above his head like a threat. “Apologize. Now. Beg for forgiveness the same way you tell your congregation.”
She was relentless and took my stillness for all the omission she needed without my words to confirm the truth. I watched a single tear roll down to her perfect jaw line as she snapped.
She used to beat up my bullies, force them to apologize through grated teeth, but she never had the menacing look in her eyes that screamed for no absolution. Eve had no more princess left in her; this was the real breaking point of how far she had put Denmark in the rearview mirror.
He pleaded with her as his hand landed on her exposed leg, trying to usher in some kind of sympathy from the wrong person. Something in me knew Eve understood all too well.
Still smoking the joint down to a nub, I watched Eve silently cry while driving the solid gold monstrance into him recklessly. The cross sitting at the top of the metal rays surrounding what was supposed to be the body of Christ plunged right into his heart—the black organ that believed in God but acted like the devil among us.
I was calm and she was the storm, always.
The blood pooled out of him, soaking into the stairs and sticking to my boots as it ran right to me like I had commanded it to. It was poetic, all the leftover danger escaping her and sticking to me just like when we were kids.
Looking up from the blood pooling at my boots, I watched Eve violently lose it with every plunge of the monstrance into him. She wasn’t even aiming, simply gripping her weapon of choice and demanding apologies from a dead man.
I couldn’t see the features of his face or hear him choking on the blood anymore when I stood up, taking the long strides to Eve still hovering over his body. Every stab left his face even more caved in than the last, the bones cracked, and the skin was so muddled in blood that none of him looked human anymore.
His outside finally matched the inside.
Pushing out my hand, I passed over the few puffs left on the joint and wrangled the monstrance out of her grasp. It took a few tugs before her grip finally let go.
“Enough, Eve. It’s enough.” Her bloody hands shook, and her tear-stained face physically hurt to look at.
I should have stopped her, saved her from this moment she wouldn't forget—her first kill. I never expected her to do more than hold my bullies responsible.
“Enough? Enough to fix us? Enough what, Bowen?” She was exhausted and delirious from the realization that even miles away we suffered similar circumstances.
I didn’t have the answers. All I knew was that he was dead and hitting him more wasn’t ever going to make the truth disappear—the pain that turned into those demons, demons we held onto still.
One hand tangled in the other; one hand holding the darkness.
Pushing her hair behind her ear, I forced her to look away. “Nothing is enough. Only you.”
Curling into me, I wrapped my arms around her, smoothing down her hair carefully when she whispered against the cotton of my shirt. “We kill each other’s demons... or at least leave scars.”
Keeping my arm around her, I walked her away from the body and through the door still propped open. She was sprayed with blood, and the wake hadn’t even truly started, this was just the fucking preamble.
I expected Eve to be numb in a way that made her seem unrecognizable. The same way I was after I killed the priest who actually did what he did to me. That same night I looked in the mirror and saw a person I lost, a ghost, Braeden. Eve looked exactly how she did before—in love, in heat, and in the middle of eight different thoughts.
Spotting the stoup outside the door, full of holy water, the bright idea of tarnishing it came to the foreground of my mind. She dipped her hands into the water and pretended to sizzle when her mouth made the sound. Cracking a slight smirk, I let her crawl her way inside my chest the way she wanted. She was the only person who cracked my surface and she basked in that fact.
Rubbing the water against her hands, I tried to make her as clean as possible before people reached for her hand to make sure she knew she wasn’t alone in this trying time. We certainly couldn’t continue with Father What’s-His-Name’s body still bleeding out.
Vic entered the room, confused and silently trying to assess what was happening. Then, he saw the blood. “Casket has to move. Now.” Vic was the kind of guy you could rely on. He didn’t need any extra information or justifications, he just wanted results.
“No shit, Sherlock. Why don’t you handle that? I don’t personally care if that entire room is filled and we all sit front row.” Sarcasm wasn’t something I did often and this wasn’t it, no matter how much it sounded like it.
Vic cared. No matter how much he broke the rules for Justice, that innate feeling of being a winner would never go away.
None of our traumas were going away.
The air shifted in the room before I could find the cause when Elias stood with his arms crossed against his chest, staring at Eve in her slip after I had tossed the sweater filled with blood.
He just stood there, digesting her, committing her to memory the way I did.
Shrugging off my pea coat, I draped it over her shoulders and stood as close as possible. It was hard to miss the guttural laugh that sprang from his lips in response.
Plucking the joint pinched between her lips, he took a long drag. “Everything I love about you seems to be missing… you’ve made my decision to stay easy, Eve. Aren’t you going to welcome me to LA?”
Fuck. He told he
r before I could, and I didn’t even see it coming.
I should have seen it coming, no one likes him. Even my demons point and laugh at how royally fucked this guy seems.
Eve was shaking at his words, shaking so much I could see that halo drop right out of the air and hit the floor with a devastating crack.
This is her demon.
She slayed mine with no hesitation using a holy object meant to display the body of Christ. It was pulled right from the dynamics of our childhood. We’ve always been that for each other and nothing was different now—only that I still didn’t have confirmation, just her swift change of emotion.
Eve’s still wet hands curled into fists when she spoke her words through a tense jaw, “You can’t just let me be happy can you?”
I was waiting for the wall of tears when her fist landed against his jaw with force. She had snapped right back into the old Eve who would fight you if it meant protecting her happiness. She wasn’t violently throwing fists trying to chase adrenaline or false power—she unapologetically fights for us.
Stepping in front of her, Vic flanked her other side. “Problem, Bo?” He hated him almost as much as she did and I was desperate to see it.
Did the darkness eat all the light parts of me enough to think the vile of the world are normal?
“He was just leaving. Weren’t you, Elias?”
Flicking the joint in the holy water, he leaned into me. “Enjoy her while you can.”
I wanted to kill him right there, slay her demon and ensure her happiness but something pinned me in place. My demons held me back from the truth.
Khaos came pouring into the room with so much energy it clashed against the residual anger left to sit heavy in the air. “CeCe said she needs to say goodbye before her body boards the plane. I told her it’s way too soon; she just got into a plane crash. PTSD is a bitch.”
Watching Elias walk away, I bit off my insult, lashing out the way I knew how to at his stupid timing for a joke. “What do you know about PTSD, ass? Read the room.”
Resting his arm across my shoulders, he found my line of sight, watching him walk away the way he needed to before he forced me to steal the truth. “I know that guy is walking, talking PTSD.”
Snapping my eyes to Khaos, I searched for answers in his features when I knew better. He only gives you the map, not the location of the damn treasure.
Eve was still shaking, part fear and part anger. Guiding her inside the room next to where the refreshments were, I made her say goodbye to her mother before it was too late.
Hate her or not, closure is underrated.
If I could say goodbye to Braeden I would have, but instead he left a note under my pillow, full of questions and guilt, no closure in sight.
ELIAS
Seeing Eve was like a cold breath of fresh air that fills your lungs in this energetic way that nothing else seems to do.
I felt a connection to Eve even when she left Denmark, a connection that wouldn't be severed no matter how many girls I picked up in bars or promised a throne to. Eve wasn’t a girl you could fuck out of your system, she was poison slowly working her way into your bloodstream, hoping you’d die a death at her hands.
That unbreakable connection drove me mad until I started keeping tabs, inserting myself into her life—cauterizing the wounds I helped create.
I wanted to be both: her nightmare and daydream.
Her mother and my father’s death wasn’t an accident, it was part of the redemption I desired in order to keep our connection alive.
I watched carefully during the whole wedding and saw the gaps where I was missing in her life. I was the stability, the strength, the person who taught her exactly how to survive long enough to arrive here—the meaningless void of a life that was just out of reach.
She was stumbling her way through being my Eve and his Eve. Neither truly winning, just tearing her apart instead.
The wake was all the convincing and justification I needed to know what I was doing was right.
She needed me more than ever.
Good thing I handed the old lady across the street a duffle full of money to vacate her lovely home so I could move in. You know, to keep an eye on the parts of Eve I embedded myself in, the parts of her she needed to keep surviving… Me.
EVE
I had been sitting in the same spot on the couch for longer than I was keeping time. There was a single glass on the armrest full of alcohol and a box of tissues he had pushed closer to me.
I could tell Bowen was afraid of me, pacing the hallway waiting for me to need him right outside the bounds of the living room. I finally came undone and it was poorly timed.
Elias announced that he would be moving to LA to keep an eye on me, and my happily ever shuddered at the idea of how unstable it truly was.
I would never be okay until that particular demon wasn’t strong enough to discourage, distract, and deceive me.
Nothing is permanent with him walking the same earth as me.
Catatonic isn’t ugly; it’s hard to swallow. Someone gave up enough to condemn themselves to turning it all off, that’s what catatonic is. With a snap of my fingers and the threat of Elias I turned it all off. The tears streaming down my face weren’t accompanied with violent threats of my limbs or the inability to breath. Those tears went rogue.
I felt nothing but the wet trails dampening my cheeks in a response to my happy days being numbered, and Bowen didn’t even understand what was so truly wrong with Elias being here. He only saw the outside of the trauma when the inside was so dark; I had to protect him from its heaviness.
I was mentally counting the number of steps Bowen took down the hall, half glancing my direction while my body feeling anchored to this spot on the couch. The footsteps seemed to drift off, fading into the background noise of my mind when my attention suddenly collided with him yelling, “Because I fucking said so!”
Whatever he was yelling about seemed to elicit every ounce of emotion he had and it made my chest tighten with jealousy.
I want to be the sole source of those emotions.
Call it toxic; I call it reality.
That alone dragged me kicking and screaming back from the catatonic state I was drowning in.
I realized I may not have any real power against Elias, but I had a happy ending to enjoy… until he ruins it.
I coughed around the glass, inhaling the contents when Bowen came running into the room with a panic glazing over him. Holding up a hand I finished the drink before speaking, “Guess you have questions… it’s only fair. You told me something so personal I wanted to lock it away.” Poking my own chest, I made it clear his secrets were mine, hidden away inside my heart.
Leaning against the door frame he let his features smooth out into calm again. “Please just tell me who Elias is, Eve.”
“My tormentor.”
“Define tormentor.” He was quick, too quick. It was mental tennis and if you couldn’t keep up, he found the weaknesses. Truths too, probably.
Sitting back into the couch, I hoped to sink in enough to disappear when Elias ran through my mind, dragging all the bad memories with him until I felt my throat tickle with the threat of throwing up. I tried to push it back down, but my cheeks tingled, my stomach turned, and I was rushing to the bathroom before it came up in front of Bowen. Barely enough time to close the door, I dropped down to my knees in front of the toilet and let the bad memories come up with the bile.
Normal people don’t enjoy throwing up, but I relished in it. The feeling of purging was cleansing and when it was over, I felt light without all the bad things weighing me down.
Once I worshipped the porcelain, all the feelings of having to throw up dissipated, vanishing. I pushed my fingers past my lips and didn’t let them stop until I gagged around my own bones forcing my stomach to clench. Everything came up including my dignity when I told myself I wouldn’t do this again after my mom pinched my skin and made it seem like I was a disgrace to her royalty.
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br /> I swore I wouldn’t just survive anymore.
I swore I wouldn’t make Bowen live if I was just getting by.
I swore I wouldn’t let myself hurt in my happy ending.
Sitting back, I stared at the toilet, letting my shoulder blades cut into the wall behind me, ashamed of how much I folded under the pressure of Elias. I was so ashamed I wanted to force myself to stare at what I had just done until I understood all the ways Bowen slowly killed himself.
The knock on the door made reality crash down around me when Bowen was standing outside, talking through the wall between us, “Are you all right?” He must have heard me throw up if he was asking if I was okay and a heat flooded my cheeks.
Standing up, I pulled the door open slowly, letting him see me. “Just an upset stomach. I’m fine.” I pushed past him, making my way to the kitchen for some water to smooth over the look of anger on his face.
Holding his arms to his chest, I felt him following me. “I’ve heard you get up in the middle of the night, Eve. It’s not the first time I’ve heard you throwing up. Any more demons I should know about?”
Standing between the fridge and the island, I spun around so fast I felt myself heating up again. “Anymore demons? Like the ones I didn’t know you had until we were in too deep? The Henny? The cutting? Priests? None of it confirmed. You weren’t honest with me. I had to stumble around in the dark until I tripped over your demons.” I felt the yelling I was doing crawl up to my heart, stopping it from beating. I had never purposely hurt Bowen and right now I was shoving his demons down his throat and hoping he would choke on them.
He kept the distance between us, twisting the chair around before slumping down. His elbows dug little graves into his thighs while he spoke, “I’m not hiding anything, Eve. I told you I’m not your Bowey anymore, I told you I’m no angel, I told you to be happy with what I gave you but you refused to listen. You pushed and pushed. I need to know what kind of darkness lives inside you because I know I don’t deserve you.”