I’d shown her this because I saw no other option than to break the connection we were forming. Now, the sight of her fighting to understand this situation made me regret what I had just done.
She glanced back for only a second, but I didn’t miss the daggers she shot at me. I didn’t miss the tremble in her fingers before she closed them into fist. There was a well of emotions blazing behind my eyes because I had put that sadness in her. Now, my consciousness was damning me for revealing my sick behavior. Poker-hot sensations made my internal organs melt at the sight of her drooping body, my reveal crushing her usually happy demeanor.
I had to do this. I had to push her away for both our sakes. She had to see me fully. If I didn’t exert some sort of resistance, I would end up following her like a puppy, begging her to alleviate the overpowering flow of need that was wreaking havoc on me.
A mixture of hurt and pain flashed through her tight expression when she glanced back a second time. A thick lump of regret clogged my throat, my reward for showing her the horrific shit that filled her eyes with unshed tears and caused her body to coil so tight with tension she appeared ready to snap.
“How long?” she questioned, her voice low and strained. I could already feel the heat burning away the connection we had formed.
“For the past six years, ever since the night of the ball when I bumped into you.” I spit out the poisonous truth, driving the tip of the rusted blade into my heart with my own words. She was either going to fear me or hate me.
She stared at the wall, not saying a word. The silence in the space had turned into a weight that pressed down on me, but I squared my shoulders and endured it.
The mind was a fickle creature, building roadways to ideas it led you to accept as truths. Never would I have ever thought she would be attracted to me or would want to kiss me. I had always believed that I would never get anywhere near her. It was one of the reasons I had allowed myself to go this far, to create something so insane as a shrine.
There was nothing I could say to explain how I had allowed myself to do something like this. The shit was crazy, a fact that I had accepted, but it had been my secret. There were no excuses, not that I would give her any.
When she made a move, I blinked away my thoughts. She inched up to the wall and placed her trembling hand atop one of the pictures as her head jetted from picture to picture, glaring at more of them.
“Why did you show me this?” she questioned, her gaze still riveted on the pictures.
“You needed to see me for who I am. You needed to know that I’m nothing like the picture of me you’ve created in your head. I’m the monster who coveted a woman I believed I would never have, that I would have never approached. I showed you this so you would be turned off by me and never want to touch me again, so you would marry my brother and never want to see me again. You needed to know that I’m as dangerous as the rumors suggest and as deranged as they imply.”
She didn’t respond but instead glared back at me, absorbing my words with an indecipherable expression.
“I’m not a nice person, Desiree. I kill people. I like killing people. It’s been my job for so long that I don’t know how to do anything else. I like eating away their lives and sending their souls to hell. I enjoy their deaths, knowing that I’m responsible for taking the most valuable thing they ever had. Can you actually picture yourself with someone like me?”
She turned away without answering. Of the million questions swimming around in my head, at that moment, I wanted to know the answer to only one. What did she think of me now?