Page 61 of My Dark Divine
Flashback
Age 16
Growing up, I never knew what true love was. Sometimes, it feels like Grandma loves me unconditionally, despite the fact that I was the one who took her daughter away. But her love is a strange kind—mechanical, the only way she knows how to express it. We are close, but it doesn’t feel complete.
I catch glimpses of love whenever I watch Dad with my sister. The way he softens his voice for her, how he calms her when she cries over nothing—all of it reveals something I’m not a part of and never will be.
But this, too, is a twisted kind of love—rooted in guilt and obsession. Chloe, a mirror image of our mother, is a constant reminder for him. And though I carry as much of our mother’s DNA, it’s Chloe, angelic like Mom, who embodies her spirit. Dad has managed to crush anything soft in me, molding me into the opposite of what she is.
She is light, and I am a shadow.
These aren’t the kinds of love I want to give. I want something deeper, something more powerful—the kind of love people dream of in movies. I want to care for someone, to give them my whole attention and time, to let them consume me just as I’ll consume them.
I want to lose myself in that feeling—a feeling so dangerous and forbidden to me that just thinking about it feels intoxicating. I hadn’t thought of anything like this until I went on a date with Amelia. At first, I thought she was joking, setting me up for some embarrassment like everyone else loved to do.
But she wasn’t.
The date was awkward, and I couldn’t stop looking down, my feet picking at stones as if they held the answers. My face felt like it was on fire, growing redder with every passing second. Guys my age already have girlfriends and go on dates like it’s nothing, and here I was, barely able to make eye contact with a girl.
Amelia was patient with me, surprisingly so. She laughed at all my silly jokes and answered every question I asked, no matter how random or ridiculous I sounded.
I can feel myself falling for her. I know it’s too soon to say, but this feeling is too powerful to deny.
I snuck some cash from Dad’s wallet, enough to get myself headphones and buy her a necklace. The silver heart might be cliché, but it’s perfect. Its tiny blue stones remind me of her eyes,and the shape mirrors the little mole on her cheek that’s almost too faint to see.
I hope she’ll love it. She’s the kind of girl who deserves the very best, even in small gestures like this. The need to give her everything she deserves surged up suddenly, and now it’s taking over, unstoppable. It pulses through me like something electric and addictive.
If this isn’t love, then what is?
I want so much to ask her out again, but I’m afraid she’ll misunderstand, that she’ll think I want something else. In truth, all I want is to hear her laugh, see her smile, and watch her heart-shaped mole crinkle when she does. Just a movie, lying under the sky, and her hand in mine.
Every day, I find myself thinking of new ideas for our dates and new ways to make her happier. We text a lot, and although I don’t push to see her, I’ve found a way to keep the connection alive. Using a bit of hacking knowledge my dad taught me—he always said it would come in handy—I managed to access her social media profiles. I know it’s wrong to invade her privacy, but I haven’t read her messages or checked anything too personal. I just looked through the basics, like her favorite movies, colors, and things like that.
When we’re together, my mind goes blank, and I forget to ask her everything I had planned. But now, with my notes, I’ll remember exactly what I want to ask her. I can start conversations about her interests, surprising her with how much we have in common.
I feel myself coming alive.
Maybe—just maybe—my life is finally getting better.
The tipof the blade glimmers under the dim light of the basement. Dad places the knife in my palm as I look at the man sitting before us. He’s still alive—his breathing slow but steady—and I can sense the excruciating pain coursing through him. The rasp of his breath, the faint rattle of his bones, the flutter of his eyelids as his body fights to stay awake. It all feels so vivid, almost painfully real in this space. Every time I return here, it’s like I turn into some kind of fucking superhuman, every sense painfully sharpened.
“Finish him,” Dad commands, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a towel he grabbed from a nearby chair. I take a step toward the man who was foolish enough to cross my father.
“Please,” he begs, spitting out more blood as he tries to speak. “Don’t kill me.”
If I refuse, Dad will beat me up again. Each time I hesitate to finish the job, he grumbles at me to man up before starting to smash my face and body until I can barely move. With each fight, breathing becomes more difficult, and I dread the thought of experiencing that pain again.
It’s either me or them. I don’t even know who they are—though it hardly matters. If they’re here, they’ve fucked up, and my dad takes out all his anger on them.
I come closer to him, my hand steady as it drives the blade into his jugular. Blood bursts from the wound, droplets splattering across my face, but I don’t flinch. I don’t react.
It’s me or him. Me or him.
The words keep repeating in my mind, over and over, as the man desperately fights for his life. Finally, I pull the blade out and step back.
“I know about Amelia.”
Shock floods my system, erasing the blank expression I’ve grown used to putting on in this place. As Dad approaches, I turn to him, and he nods toward the corpse.
