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I couldn't stand the look of love shining through his eyes.
Rook was right.
We should've killed him under different circumstances. But I'd been so angry when I'd seen that text on his phone,his heart, that I'd wanted to look into his eyes when I did it and watch as I obliterated him into nothingness.
I. Couldn’t. Move.
Maybe I needed him to suffer, to cut all ties with him first.
And so, I lowered the gun.
“No, Tatiana. Don't." For the first time tonight, Knight looked remorseful.
I’d replaced my gun with the pair of scissors.
A petty gratification filled me as I snipped through the ribbon on his wrist, cutting it from his wrist.
Despite the pain filling his gaze, he didn’t stop me as I held it between us.
I wanted to destroy it, and along with it, all of our memories.
I wanted to wipe the very history of our existence together.
Feeling the depth of his love, then the profound silence of his absence, was worse than if I’d never had his love to begin with. It had hollowed me out inside like a never-ending hole, until I was as lifeless as his black heart. More lifeless then when I was on heroin.
There was no stopping me now; I started at the bottom, snipping, snipping,oh so very petty of me, snipping the ribbon into pieces, imagining it was his very heart. And, by the anguished expression on his face, it might as well be.
Bit by bit, piece by piece, I cut him out of my very soul, wrenching every bit of him from me with the snip of the scissors. It was exhilarating, freeing. Loosening his hold over me. I was floating on air.
Horror-struck, his eyes were glued to my hand, the tendrils of red falling between us.
Of all the terrible things I'd done in my life, I'd never felt as powerful in my life as I did right now.
So. Knight could bleed.
I could hurt him, after all.
The ribbon fell to pieces at each snip of the cold metal in my fingers.
So simple.
So powerful.
I was cutting away the very evidence of our connection, and I reveled in it. I was destroyingitandhimandour historyand…
…everything.
Suddenly, as I stared at the tiny pieces of red destruction on his chest, I wasn't so proud of myself.
When had I ever been so petty?
So heartless? So cruel?
So careless with Knight’s heart?
Never.
Despite everything he’d done to me, that would never erase all the good he’d been in my life.