“When she wanted me, I acted like I didn't need her. Now that I need her, she's acting like she doesn't want me.”
STELLA
To love and feel loved. It’s all anyone aspires to, yet few reach such arbitrary aspirations. I was certain I would never experience something as meaningful as love. Pain, sadness, fear. Those were more along the lines of emotions I would learn to live with. My story is unlike any other, yet not in any way unique. I was raised by a loathsome tyrant who threatened to ruin me in any and every way he could. He shaped me into the perfect porcelain doll he needed me to be, silent and obedient. His own personal marionette, to leave bloody, bruised, and alone, with no hope of a brighter future. That is exactly what I became until I met him. The dark prince who ruined me more than anybody had and destroyed whatever was left of me. Yet he was also the only person who ever made me truly feel. I was numb, desensitized to the world until he touched me in a way I had never been touched, and it was at that moment, despite everything else, that I became his.
MALACHI
I knew I would never amount to anything of importance, and I was content with that. I accepted I wasn’t deserving of the fictional concepts of love and happiness everyone else was accustomed to. Worst of all, I wasn’t capable of offering it. The world had shown me early on that I was insignificant and worthless. Why else would it be so cruel to me when I had done nothing to deserve its rage? I was a child, and if the people who were supposed to protect me unconditionally couldn’t be bothered to give a shit, then who would? Though when I met her, all of that seemed inconsequential. She became my one and only craving. An addiction I took on and became so enamored by I could no longer tell right from wrong. All I knew was that I needed her to survive. I needed to protect her. I needed her, consequences be damned. However, without intention, I did the one thing I was always afraid I’d do. I broke her. I shattered the fragile doll to pieces, breaking her beyond repair. It was then I knew she was never meant for me.
Boys aren’t supposed to play with dolls, and for damn good reason.