earth

chapter 61

At night, the mere sight of me made Ava cringe and recoil. She would put up a fight, insisting that I sleep on the couch, far away from her. I would always oblige, feeling the weight of her rejection crushing me. As I lay there, alone, I would torture myself with thoughts of how to be better, how to change, and how to prove myself worthy of her affection.

I turned over on the couch, trying to block out Jason's laughter from the other room. I knew he was only joking, but his taunts stung nonetheless. What did he know about the hell that I was going through, being rejected by the love of my life every single night?

Jason had suggested giving Ava time to heal, both physically and emotionally, but I couldn't stand the thought of waiting any longer. I could hear her screams at night, cries of anguish and terror that I couldn't explain. I knew something was wrong, and I was determined to fix it.

"Are you going to man up?" Jason's voice taunted me from across the room as he sat in his chair, puffing on a cigar. I stood up, pushing my hair back, and scowled at him. He could always tell how angry I was when I did that.

Without another word, I left him in the other room and marched straight to Ava's bedroom. I knocked on the door, then let myself in. She was awake, and I wasn't expecting that.

She sat up in bed, her back against the headboard, with the moonlight filtering in through the window. I cleared my throat and spoke up, "I want to talk to you."

She rolls her eyes dismissively and retorted, "It's always about what you want. You aren't even asking how I feel."

Her words stung, but I brushed them off. I didn't care how she felt, as long as she was alive and still with me. "I was going to get to that," I replied defensively as I slowly walked towards her. She stopped me with a hand, her eyes smoldering with anger.

"Don't," she said, her voice low and tense.

I tried to keep my composure, but it was difficult. "How long are you going to keep this up?" I asked impatiently. "It's already been a week."

She snapped back, "As long as it takes for me to feel better and leave you again."

As I look at her with furrowed brows, disbelief, and anger start to boil inside me. "Leave me?" I scoff, unable to contain my frustration. "Are you serious? After everything I've done for you?" My voice is laced with bitterness as I speak, feeling the weight of her words breaking my heart.

"What you have done for me is cause this world to be destroyed," she says, her voice trembling with emotion. "What you have done for me is cause my name to be used in fear. William, what you do is murder people's friends, families, and strangers! William, you are the most self-centered, idiotic person I've ever fucking met!" Her words hit me like a ton of bricks, and I can feel the weight of my actions crushing me under their weight.

"My priority has always been you, and only you. Your safety is the only thing that matters to me, even more than my own. When I look at you, I see my entire world. There's something about you that just made me know, from the very first moment, that you were the one I had to be with. The one I had to protect at all costs.

She scoffs in disbelief, but I can't hold back the emotions any longer. Tears bubble up inside my eyes as I pick up a knife and jam it into my arm, watching the blood flow in a deep crimson stream. She gasps, calling out my name as the pain visibly shakes me, but it's nothing compared to the pain of seeing her hurt.
"I can live with this pain," I gasp out, my eyes locking onto hers as I take a step closer. "Because it's nothing compared to the pain of seeing you bleed, of hearing you scream in the night. You are my life, Ava. My everything."

Closing my eyes, I struggle to compose myself, but the emotions are too strong. "From the first moment our eyes met, I understood the true meaning of taking a deep breath and feeling alive. I knew in that moment that you were the missing piece of my puzzle, the only person in this world who could make me truly feel complete."
My voice is barely above a whisper as I cup her face, needing to show her, to tell her, just how much she means to me. "And when I gave you my heart, I knew it was the right decision. I could feel it leaving my body, leaving my safe harbor, and going into yours. I knew that no matter where life takes us, my heart would always be with you, beating in time with your own."

Her fingers, slick with blood, dig into my skin as she presses down hard on my bleeding arm, littered with tattoos. The pain sears through me but I don't flinch. She doesn't say a word, her face taut with worry and frustration.

Suddenly, she's up and pulling me towards the bathroom. Her grip on my arm is tight, her touch comforting and terrifying all at once. As we stumble into the bathroom, I see her eyes flicker to my wounds, searching for a way to make it stop. I watch her with fascination, the sight of her trying to help me making my heart race.