ᴀᴘʜʀᴏᴅɪᴛᴇ // $ᴜɪᴄɪᴅᴇʙᴏʏ$

Chapter Thirty Five

ARISTOS

I almost flinched when I felt Aphrodite softly touch my arm; refused to look over at her because I knew she was just a figment of my imagination.

I could hear all the voices coming back, and knew I needed to handle it by taking one of my pills. I needed to endure and survive this but I didn't want to take one.

Why haven't you found me? Aphrodite murmured to me.

I pulled up my boxers, crawled off the motel bed, and left the ghostly figure of Aphrodite for the lonely confines of shadows and darkness, only for her to reappear in the bathroom.

I told myself, staring at my reflection in the mirror of the motel bathroom, that she wasn't really there. I would have died just to see the real her again.

I was in love with Aphrodite, she sunk her claws into me so deep that ever since she was taken, my heart had been broken. I missed her. I loved her. And I could still feel her. I could see her in the walls, in the ceiling, next to me in the bed, I could hear her voice in my head, reminding me of what she was to me. I was dying in sorrow and shame. It killed me to think that Scrim thought I killed Sienna, but I was so fucking angry at the same time. I wanted to murder him and throw his dead body in the ocean for taking Aphrodite away from me.

I stared into the mirror, reached so far inside myself to find my heart, and forced myself to see it, and when Aphrodite appeared in the mirror instead of my own reflection, when she stared back at me with those big green eyes, my heart broke all over again.

My eyes stared into the mirror in sadness as Aphrodite faded away.

My life belonged to her.

I lifted my hand to the mirror, ran my finger down the glass where Aphrodite's cheek was, and felt my heart lurch in my chest as I remembered the last thing she said to me before she was dragged away from me. It was the hardest thing I had ever experienced. It felt even harder now that I couldn't find her, to know that I would once again walk out the door and get in my car to go look for her and I wouldn't find her.

I love you, Aristos, she had screamed to me.

I punched the mirror and it felt good seeing the glass break, and my bloody knuckles from the impact felt even better. I ripped the toilet seat off and threw it in the bathtub, then I fisted the shower curtain and tore it down, causing the rod it hung on to come crashing down with it. I took the shampoo and body wash next to the tub and threw the bottles against the wall, breaking the plastic and the contents splattered on the wall. Then I stared at myself now in the broken, cracked up glass of the mirror. My heart was going to be the fucking death of me.

I sniffed out an exasperated breath, fisted my hands at my sides and left the bathroom in destruction. My eyes felt wide with rage, my feet stomping along the ground until I reached the bed, returned to the space of my ultimate and terrible discovery. Returned to the woman who wasn't really there. I approached the bed closer, my anger so heavy and so strong.

I could feel myself practically shaking in my anger. And I didn't know what else to do. I pulled everything off my body until I was standing completely naked as I watched Aphrodite and seethed.

I love you. The nonexistent Aphrodite whispered to me.

Then I could hear other voices in my head, the voices whom I didn't know belonged to. There were so many of them, some male voices and some female voices. They whispered demonic things to me. They all spoke at once, most of the time I couldn't even understand what they were saying. They always told me what to do. They told me to do things I didn't want to do.

I hadn't taken my pills ever since Aphrodite was taken. I only ever used marijuana to calm me down, but it only got rid of my anxiety, it never did quiet the voices.

I was angry that I couldn't find her, so the voices told me to smash up the motel room. Completely naked, I destroyed every little thing I came across with tunnel vision until I heard Aphrodite's sharp voice coming from the bed.

Aristos! Clean this fucking mess up right now, you angry bull! Clean it up or I'll shoot you, you primitive asshole!

My knife that I hadn't realized I was holding dropped out of my hand and onto the floor. I had started stabbing the small loveseat that sat against the wall across the bed repeatedly.

Then the demonic voices started filling my head again and my ears were ringing painfully loud. They screamed at me for having stopped destroying the room. My eyes started to redden and fill with water and I fell backward and scooted up against the wall. I put my hands over my ears. "Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!" I screamed back at the voices.