Page 14

Ring Around the Rosie, I Mean Red…

“Everything comes full circle, and it’s time I remove myself from insanity instead of expecting a different ending. Some ties are meant to be cut, and cutting ties is what I am good at.”

—Ivy

I don’t remember a lot from my shuffled, grippy sock childhood.

So many pieces are still missing, months or years even, but they come back randomly.It’s a long string of memories I’ve tried to change, rearrange, and alter every day in my adult life.

I’ve always been aware of the residual trauma embedded in me.

I’ve seen many therapists over my time trying to get a handle on the flashbacks and visions torched in my precious brain.

It wasn’t until I found Evalyn that I knew everything I was doing was healing me in my own way.

She never told me I needed to handle it and move on; no, she reminded me that how I had been managing the hauntings of my past were not weak or wrong.

She was always reiterating that with the amount of trauma I experienced from not just my dad, but the world isn’t that of the makings of a woman without troubles.

I always respected her for her honest point of view.

Everyone else I ever tried to see wanted me to be healed and fight for it, but I never felt healing was a place I could find, nor did I want to.

I just wanted to be okay, and accepting that okay is enough has been my only goal.

To think half of my demons can be undone is naive and just someone wanting my money.

People don’t always come back, I knew I never would, but I wanted a therapist that would acknowledge that and help me travel that path while allowing me to still walk it alone at times and in my own way.

Evalyn spent overtime reminding me it is okay to still be affected by memories.

I was valid in still hating them, fearing them, and wanting to shove them down and lock them away and pretend they never happened.

She comforted me by reminding me every session that I was not a survivor.

No, I am resilient.

She knew I hated the word survivor; that word always has given me ick vibes, making me feel trapped in my trauma.

She always remained aware that it wasn’t a place I was ready to visit.

I always respected her for that.

I still do.

In our visits, she never failed to voice that it was okay not to be okay, even more so to remind me that every thought and feeling that races through my fucked up brain every day was from strength and not weakness.

My brain was trying to purge and process; it’s funny what all the brain can do to try and protect itself.

Mine has worked overtime all my life, being my sole protector.

My entire life’s work has been seeking validation.

Evalyn always gave me that.

Honestly, it’s pathetic that the only validation I ever received was from that of a woman whom I paid to listen to me.

Truth be told, our road was not an easy one.

Learning to trust her and let her in wasn’t easy.

She was a woman who have never been easy for me to understand.

The only woman I ever had in my life abandoned me.

However, having a woman therapist was important to me.

Choosing to not only find but trust in a gender I never thought I could healed me in ways I needed, in ways I didn’t know I had been crying out for.

Her ways with me weren’t that of how I’m certain she was trained.

They weren’t like any of the couches I’d sat on in my lifetime, but I think we worked because she did the one thing none of the others had.

She listened to me, heard me, and never judged me nor used anything my words walked through in her office as a weapon against me, unlike so many people in my life.

After years, my heart grew fonder of her, and in some ways, she taught me to love someone as I imagine it would be to love a family member.

Eventually, God or whoever the fuck is up there decided I didn’t deserve her either, and he chose to take her as he has done everyone I have ever cared for.

It broke me.

I haven’t experienced that type of pain in a very long time, possibly ever.

Through my spiral after her death, I hardened my heart a little more because I never wanted to experience that type of pain again.

Evalyn wasn’t just my therapist.

She was my friend, and although we never crossed our professional boundaries by hanging out outside of my sessions, it never stopped me from sometimes daydreaming about what it would be like to have her as a mother or aunt, to have someone understanding, someone to see all I am and love me past all my imperfections and many wrong turns I’ve made finding myself in this world.

The ones I made in my walk to self-awareness to who I am today.

To exist in a world I was never a part of, knew of, or granted the luxury to explore has been just as big of a hurdle for me as anything, if not the biggest.

I was raised in a boundaryless universe where everything was gray, and nothing was black and white.

I was kept from the truth of reality, life, love, and core relations that transcend all of us into functioning adults.

I only know how to exist in solitude.

I do not know the behaviors of society, for I was created in another galaxy within this world by wolves in the night.

How does one unlearn everything they were ever taught when their only reference is themselves, for without the world, I was lost, and in the world, I am even more lost.

Evalyn understood the parameters of my ability to leave my small world within the real world and never made me feel guilty for the safety in which I clung to; no, she saw me and saw my strength in my path and walked it with me, reminding me every step of the way that I was okay, or at least that I could be someday.

She believed as much as I that that day would come as long as I never gave up on trying to be good and kind in the world.

She reminded me that my shortcomings were so much less than they should have been and that I should be proud of the number of roads I have traveled in my search for okay.

Truthfully, every mistake I’ve ever made in my journey of learning haunts me every day.

Where others learn to accept them, I never can.

I need them to replay, for I never want to make them again, yet continuously learn from them.

Grace .

Something as simple as saying no was catastrophic to my mental health, for I crave to never let anyone down.

People pleasing and perfection becoming the only path I desired, and the truth is I am the most imperfect human ever.

I falter, and I fail.

The unrealistic expectation I placed to never allow myself the comfort of being okay, for okay is not a feeling I find comfort in, but I have spent my entire life fighting to fucking taste.

I fight every day to lay my head down at night feeling satisfied with my day’s work and daily humanity, while tearing down my ability to reach it in every decision I make.

At some point, my curse from birth by those who were supposed to love and nurture me became a curse I bestowed upon myself.

I went from being sabotaged by another’s hand to being the hand that destroyed it myself.

Ultimately, keeping me right where they placed me, where he and all of them did as they took and took and took until all was left in me was their reflection—broken, with a lack of self-worth, and most of all, sentenced forever to a life unloved.

Incapable of giving or receiving it freely, trustingly.

People who look at me always think I work from a place of strength, but the reality is my strength is simply weakness wrapped in a pretty bow presented to the reflection in which I allow them to see.

When you spend your entire existence wading in the water, what comfort is there to be had in learning to swim? I only know how to fight my battles racing against time, my head halfway underwater waiting for my breaths to fully succumb.

Liam started chiseling away at my poor traits little by little with his patience and constant understanding of my life decisions.

Since Evalyn, I hadn’t let anyone in until I met him that day, and something just felt right.

My private life has never been one I’ve allowed the world to see.

It’s simply just a reflection of whatever version I allow to reflect their way.

With Liam, though, I was honest from the beginning.

I told him that as unbroken as I appear, I need to be broken to survive, for I will never know how to live without swimming at the bottom; it’s the only version of myself I truly thrive in—chaos.

Liam, being Liam, has always been so understanding and oddly without a need for explanation.

When I told him I couldn’t be monogamous regardless of what he brings to the table, he simply accepted it from night one.

He’s accepted my boundaries with such ease, and at times, I can’t help but wonder who broke him.

Fuck, I don’t even know who raised him.

He’s never spoken of his family, his past, or his childhood, and as I wish to not be asked questions, I try to give him the same respect.

As of late, I find myself growing more curious through the years though.

What he’s never asked me to explain is the only thing I’ve ever known for certain about myself.

I must have sexual relationships with emotional detachment to remain in power.

I need to be the one fucking them and walking away to know that I am desired.

For when the man comes wanting more, for those few minutes and days they text after, I feel so fucking worthy and wanted in a way in which I allow them to pine for me, not a way in which was taken from me.

I am forever in power.

My sexual adventures are my healing.

I know I’m fucked up for it, but I wasn’t built for love.

I was built for speckles of it, and in order for me to be happy with him, I need to feed that other version of myself to have the slightest chance at maintaining a consistent relationship.

For without the chase they bring me that I fucking crave, I would have no capacity to truly love someone like Liam, much less stay with him.

The complete eradication of guilt when I slide down on someone who wants me, but can’t keep me, is and intoxication no pharmaceutical or alcohol company can ever give me.

Not even the murderer in Penthouse B.

I don’t use them and leave them.

I simply keep them for when I crave destruction and desire power.

A contract in which they are aware of and have crossed their T’s and dotted their I’s on my line.

I am guilty of breaking the one rule Liam requested of me the night he laid out his terms.

To never have that with someone I love or someone who loves me in return.

Feed the desire; never love the desire .

His words were like poetry to my tattered little soul.

His permission, a version of acceptance I didn’t even know I could ever have.

I always thought love meant to be everything I am not, but Liam has shown me over the years love is capable outside the normal limitations humanity tries to bind us to.

There will never be a world where I can ever unlove him for all he has given me.

Nor one where he walks away.

For all the ways he’s accepted me, and my ruin is a gift I think only comes once in a lifetime, losing him would kill me.

My breach of the agreement has been weighing on me, for the only rule we have ever had, I have been breaking with Tayden due to Red’s fucking games, bringing him back into our lives. I wish she had walked away that night at the Gala like I did. She knew she could never have him without me being pulled into her game. So tonight, I have a decision to make. Entering the loft, I make my way to the kitchen. Opening the cabinet, I pull out a flute filling it with my favorite champagne as a tear journeys down my cheek. For tonight I have a decision to make. My best friend, Liam, or him. Which road leads to the path of least destruction? Or is absolute chaos what is ahead to finally end this cycle Red created for us all these years ago? I created for all of us when I made that pact. Either way, it’s me, champagne, and silence as I wait for her to show.

“Heyyyy, not so best friend right now.”

And there goes the silence .

“At least, you acknowledge you’re the shitty friend. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t show.”

My words laced with venom, unhappy about the position she once again put me in tonight.

“Ha, noted. Like I’d ever back down from an argument with you, Ives”

The fire in her voice ignites me, freeing me from the waters I’ve been wading in.

“Perfect. So, we can agree we both know as to why I called this meeting?”

My question asserting my dominance.

“You think I didn’t decipher your words in our last conversation? Come on Ives, don’t insult my intelligence.”

she bites.

“Oh, Red, I was fucking betting on it.”

My aggression toward her begins brewing into waters we haven’t explored since we were in our early twenties. The last time we fought over him almost broke us apart completely, the consequences unexplored the night the pact was made now raw and exposed.

Circling each other as if the world is waiting for either of us to make our move. Her voice breaks through the silence.

“So how are we going to do this? You go left, I go right?”

Sarcasm sharp as a knife on her tongue, her body ready to fight.

“I was thinking more, I come out on top, and you go down. It ends tonight.”

My threat is a mere distraction knowing it will only excite her, allowing my next move to remain hidden as she boasts in her next few choice words, unaware they will be her last. Throwing the shifting words, I watch her search for hers as mine leave my tongue.

“Liam deserves more. I can’t continue this betrayal. Feed the desire, never love it, sound familiar?”

I question, her breath mere centimeters from mine.

Patiently waiting, I watch her wheels turn, her response being thought into existence. Stepping closer to me just as I had hoped, her guard is down, and her confidence wipes her protection away. Fire burning bright, her words like electricity, she strikes.

“And what about me? What about what I want ? What Tayden deserves? What you deser—

Her words fall flat as I raise the knife hidden behind my back, shoving it deep into her abdomen hard and forcefully, just like Tayden probably did to her tonight with his dick. I find joy in the surprise expressed through the glare of her pupils as I turn the knife, ensuring she feels every fucking ounce of the pain I’ve been preparing for her since the night of the Gala. Shit, for years.

Looking into her eyes as her arm grabs onto me, her knees buckle underneath her, my body becoming all she has to sturdy herself, and it is then I let my rage be heard. Grabbing onto her, ensuring she sees all the power I exude, I bring my lips to her ear, for if she has never heard me before, she will right now in this fucking moment.

“He never chose you, nor would he ever choose you, you poor, pathetic fucking girl.”

Watching my words sink in is exhilarating, fucking freeing.

“He never chose me. Liam did, and I told you I deserve to be fucking loved . You just wouldn’t fucking let me have it.”

Pulling the knife up, carving through her flesh like a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, I listen as her breath hollows out from her chest.

She’s a fighter, I give her that; honestly, it would be offensive if she wasn’t, but I mean, she’s not immortal, for everyone within a body is capable of dying.

It’s our only true weak spot as humans—our flesh—yet our most powerful strength.

She forgot I knew her weakest point all along, and sometimes you must sacrifice the one for the many.

This is the decision I knew I would be making since the moment I saw the way she looked at him that night.

I think fear of what would happen to our company without her was all that ever stopped me.

Fear of who I would become without her in my life.

“Now you have no choice,”

I bite, pulling the serrated knife from her, sealing her fate with my bare hands as I watch her bleed out. This could have gone differently. Red spent her years studying and evaluating my moves, but what she never realized is that sometimes the grasshopper outgrows the master.

“I… I… I…”

is all she can get out, her words merely gargles, her body limp within my arms.

“I…- I…- I…, come on, spit it out. You know you’re dying to get the last word—literally,”

I coax, brushing her blonde hair from her cheek. My words intermixing with laughs as her last breaths exhilarate me. Freedom feels closer than ever. My taunts proving the control I have and always have had in this friendship.

“I… I lo, lov, love, y, yo, you.”

Her words bubble with blood from her mouth, using up the last of her strength before her eyes roll back into her head, and in an instant, I am whole and the murderer of my best friend. Suddenly, it all hits me, and I am alone in my thoughts.

Fuck. What have I done? Where is Evalyn when I need her? Oh, that’s right. Fucking dead, just like fucking Red.