This is your Addiction: A Sheminist Collection

I don't love you

As requested by HiFunctioningFangirl

Set between 'White Heart' and 'The Price'

I wanted to say it to her, just to see the reaction in her face. But I had to bide my time. Every time we touched, we kissed, I forced myself to imagine she was Millie in an effort to stop myself flinching away with repulsion. My head, my heart, is a cocktail of emotions with the most potent burning me from the inside out. Love, or lust? I cannot decide, I can only feel.

Even now I punish myself with the guilt of abandoning my sweet Millie. She is a drug to me, the kind that keeps you going even when you know it is destroying you. She is my novocaine, but she only numbs me from the pain she causes me. But I would feel that pain, that glorious agony, for a year and a day and many more if it meant I could be with my Millie for eternity.

I collapse over the exquisite sink, stare hopelessly at my anguished reflection in the polished mirror. I watch as tears slide down my cheeks, my eyes red and raw and I feel hollow, so hollow, because I am not with her. Desperately, I distract myself.

I remember Emily. I remember getting drunk and throwing myself onto the pillows beside her, looking for anything, anything that could shield me from the guilt and the frustration I felt. Her hair, tousled and tangled and bushy, like Millie's but not her. Nothing could ever compare to her and I punish myself, again, for thinking I could.

It is heartbreaking, every time I show myself to her, that I am met with either confusion or fear. Why doesn't she realise I don't want to hurt her? Why doesn't she remember? That poor, petrified face, lips slightly parted and eyes wide in recognition. I tell myself she was pleased to see me, it was tears of joy that sprang to here eyes so readily, and perhaps I had been too eager. But I do not regret it. I have too many regrets, and my love could never be one of them.

I must satisfy myself with remembering Emily, the speed and fluidity of her fingers as they found their home on the keyboard. I despised her, the way she relaxed immediately when the light from the screen highlighted her face and the raw, unbridled anger that would escape from its leash all too quickly. I do not regret hurting her. I do not regret showing her my shrine to my love, it felt like a weight off my shoulders. She was a creature of pure focus, and she never held back. Unstable in a new way, an exotic way, impure, alluring heat that met my Russian cold with determination and fury and it was like a match made in heaven that I could use and relish in the destructive purpose of ruining the Schott woman. It was too perfect, two goals achieved at once. I could get closer to my love at the same time as hurting the woman who hurt her. I am only gentle for Millie, but I am a foul, violent, creature at heart who lacks virtue and purity and my Millie, I hope, is my redemption.

She is heaven personified. Love is blind, but I am not blind to all of her irregularities and her eyes that are so large and beautiful and her brittle, thin frame I care for it too much too much too much but I would never exchange this perfection for any drug or aphrodisiac she is mine and I love her and

I wipe the tears off my eyes and leave the room. My bare feet meet luxurious carpet. I wince at the feeling, knowing that I would rather be in a hovel on the outskirts of Moscow with my Millie than in pure exuberance without her. I grab a bottle, hold it by the neck and marvel at the clear liquid within. It looks like a collection of tears, my tears, and I know to get rid of them by drinking them. Not on my own, but with the two plain, desperate girls at the door, waiting in the bitter chill of winter.

And so I begin again the cycle of drowning my sorrows in alcohol and tears.

I let them in, make small talk, my mouth knowing by months of practice what to do, how to charm them while I let my mind wander. Even these wraith-like girls are better to me than Emily. I hated it, the stench of her breath, heavy with liquid money as I showered her with superficial love. Enough to hide that I wasn't into her, and every night I would have to pretend. Like I do tonight. Pretend it's Millie. My Millie. As my bedroom door closes I let out a sigh of fatigue- it is going to be a long night.

Revised and reposted 30/7/16

A/N~
That is to say, I have taken into account the reception this part received upon its first time being published, and have edited it accordingly.

Apologies for the double update, it appears Wattpad did not see fit to add this A/N at the end first time, despite it being saved etc.
~Cinna