Azrael: This isn’t over.
Not sure who’s more pathetic right now: me for the pity party or him because he is trying to crash it. If, and only if, he getsnear me again, it will be on my own terms and most likely with my blade cutting his fucking throat. I turn the phone over, face down, like it’s some sort of magic spell that will keep him away from my existence.
But that is not enough for the demon inside him. He calls.
Once. Twice. Three times.
By the seventh attempt, my fingers hover over the screen thinking I should answer. By the twelfth, I’m laughing like a maniac. And by the nineteenth, I basically have to restrain my body from going over to his place. It feels like half of me blames him for fucking me up, and the other half wants to ask him to continue what he started. Fucking Stockholm syndrome. Does he need me? He knows exactly where to find me.
I open my laptop and write it out the same way I used to in the past when I needed clarity:
Reasons I’m Victoria
I didn’t die.
I left on my terms.
I didn’t answer.
I’m not his.
I don’t need him.
Yes, this is me, the one who doesn’t care. The one that’ll kill just because the perfume is too strong or because someone looked at me for too long.
“Who the fuck needs the Professor? I have my wine, and it’s enough,” I say out loud.
I walk into the kitchen with all the grace of a womannotunraveling while Cat trails behind me. He doesn’t believe it either.
The cabinet is closed. The glasses have gone untouched for ten days now and my version of self-control is sealed in a bottle. I pop the cork and pour a glass too full; it almost spills onto the floor. Despite that, it still takes me less than twenty seconds to finish it. It burns, and I can feel the familiar wave that flows through my body, the sweet sensation of acidity. Pleasure.
The newly refilled glass dangles in my hand as I climb onto the kitchen counter the way I would at the edge of a rooftop. I tuck my knees in and let the night bleed in through the window. The city is breathing, headlights blink, and someone on the next street over plays jazz at the wrong volume—loud enough for me to hear, soft enough to still feel alone.
And suddenly?—
A sound.
The doorbell rings, again and again. I take a knife from the drawer and my neck stiffens, getting my body ready for action. At the sound, poor Cat bolts and hides under the couch. But not me. I’m ready for this. Iwantthe person on the other side of the door to enter. If they want totryto kill me, good. But not until I finish my wine.