Duplicity [h.s]

91

tw: drug abuse!!

thank you for your patience like usual, these chapters are long but I'm finding my routine again!

Harry Styles

I love you, Av. I love you so fucking much.

The lies I hid are lies I can expect you to forgive and forget. They are lies I should've been upfront with before I let myself fall in love with you. Or even more, before I let you fall in love with me.

I broke your selfless heart—me, I did it.

I feel sick knowing I did that to you—I feel disgusted knowing I made you think you were only just a pawn to me. I truly love you, Av. I never wanted to see you hurt by anyone, let alone me. Those terrible deals I made were before you but still things I never expect you to pardon. I don't deserve your forgiveness.

I singlehandedly ruined your life—but not because of the deals I made with Malikai. I ruined your life when I shared my joint with you in an empty football field, or when I laid with you beneath the downpour of Miami rain. I ruined your life when I raced you into the ocean or carved your nickname in a tree. I ruined your life when I kissed you, when I fucked you, when I held your hand.

I ruined your life when I loved you.

Because without all of this, you never would've loved me back and you never would've felt this pain from the truth of my deceits. I'm mortified with myself and what I foolishly let happen. I didn't just make sacrificial deals before I met you, I let you fall in love with me in the process. I selfishly let myself fall in love with you and just didn't care about the consequences lurking in the shadows. I accidentally orchestrated something that I thought was a good thing.

Love—I never knew it could be wrong. I always thought love was perpetual and nothing but a good thing in any circumstance.

But that's not true, is it?

Love is what made you feel worse. The lies are what broke your heart, but the love is what broke your spirit. The love I had for you only made the lies worse and destroyed that last piece of your soul you claimed you would never give to anyone again. You never believed in love and you told me that from the start, and look what I did to you? I made you love me just to shatter it all in the end. Like a bull in a china shop, I destroyed you simply by just loving you and I had no idea.

I'm so sorry, angel.

If there is one thing I wish I could tell you over and over again, it's that our moments of love were never lies. The wedding chapel, the steamed car, the swim shorts, the carnival bears, the absinthe, the frozen yogurt, the joints, the holding, the laughing, the kissing, the confiding, the tears, the butterflies, the high—it was all real. Any moment we shared together that made this relationship, was real. I said it once and I'll say it again— I never faked my feeling for you.

The mafia, the boss, the killer, my hidden past—that's where all the lies came in. After a while, I told myself that those things were all just side plots because you and your love became my primary focus. I was so stuck on the feelings I had with you that I merely brushed off what I was hiding in the course of it all. And for that, I don't deserve to be forgiven.

I don't get to play the victim—I don't get to cry and tell you I gave you everything I had. Because that's not the point, the point is you gave me everything you had and I didn't cherish as much as I thought I did or I would've told you the truth a long time ago. The whole time I was telling myself I was always going to put you and your emotions first—but I didn't. I put mine without even knowing it. I thought hiding the truth to keep you happy was putting you first, what an idiot I am.