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Aria

T here’s one thing controling everything and anything in life, an emotion so strong, it can completely debilitate us. It overwhelms all our senses while we turn a blind eye to the toxicity surrounding us.

Love .

I always saw it as some romantic word to describe appreciation, loyalty, passion, a healthy relationship that could lead to marriage and children. Movies and novels always paint it so perfectly, and some people are lucky enough to find that type of love.

In reality, it's not all sunshine and roses.

I had absolutely no idea it could drive someone so insane–that the raw emotion between two lovers could result in complete and utter carnage.

That it could rip apart your identity.

I didn’t know what it felt like to live as a vessel while the world around me continued to spin. Yet I could see it in his eyes many times, those deep, penetrating, innocently intoxicating blues burning into my psyche with each slow, carefully controlled thrust.

With a mixture of seduction and false promises from that four-letter word, he would fuck me into oblivion, taking over every inch of my body as I submitted to him.

He wanted to own me.

And I let him–as long as I was able to own him too.

He was mine and I was his.

Being in a toxic relationship is pretty bad.

Being in love with a psychopath is way worse.

Love is dangerous.

Trust is a weakness.

Possession is a toxic game.

The devil himself delved into my mind and whispered he was everything I ever needed, wanted, craved, and I listened.

He loved me, just in his own screwed up, deranged way. I was everything to him, but that led to me being pulled onto the goddamn stage with the bastard himself. He tormented me while everyone else judged our relationship the way he wanted.

They were blind. We all were.

Everything between us was going well–or so I thought. When his mask dropped, the tell-tale signs of control grew stronger. The destruction wreaked by his mind games messed with me in ways I struggle to explain.

Physically, he would never lay a finger on me, but mentally, he destroyed my soul.

His twisted thoughts led to so much devastation, such unforgivable consequences.

Did Tobias Mitchell care?

No.

Unless it involved me…nothing else mattered to him.