THE RED SHADE

- Do you know what this pill represents? All the things you think you're addicted to. Everything you can't feel without them. Your faith, your hopes. You can never have anything real until you lose everything first.
- I'm on prescription drugs.
Shade looked at the empty shot glasses in front of me and raised his eyebrows as if to say, really?
I shouldn't have come here.
His eyes... Beautiful, wildest eyes, dont matter because he doesn't deserve them in the first place.
So why did I feel like he was holding my heart in the same fingers that held the pill?
-"You came to me because you don't trust me," he said as he brushed his lips across my cheek like it was only a dream. His hand on my waist held me hard against him. "You're afraid of what I can do to you." His mouth stopped just short of my ear. "You know I could easily hurt you and that's what you want. Isn't it?"
- "No..." I said, trying to catch my breath. He leaned my back against the counter and wrapped his left hand around my hair. He pulled hard.
- "Don't." he said sternly, inches from our faces. "Don't lie to me. I'm not mad at you but I told you there's no going back. From this moment on, you will not lie to me, not one word. If I find out, I will hurt you. For real."
-I...
-Don't let fear speak for you. Now you've got what you came for, but imagine walking out of here. All that numbness that after a few days will be worse than before. You need this. You need me, and I'll take it. I'll give you what you want. I'll make you feel. You want to feel. Then you will.
-So if I drink that...
-When you drink this, you'll fall into a deep sleep. You'll give yourself completely to me and if you wake up, you'll start all over again.
-If I don't wake up...
- "Shh." he said. "If you don't wake up, how will you be any different than you are now? You shouldn't be afraid of not waking up, you should be afraid of waking up, but I don't expect you to understand that. Not yet anyway."