Shortly after my mother died, my boyfriend broke up with me. I didn’t have to ask if there was anybody else. His social media told me so.
For days, I stared at my phone and studied the faces of the happy couple. They pulled their lips back in satisfied grins and their eyes glittered with happiness. I dreamt of killing them.
I dreamt I sliced off those beautiful smiles, and I imagined ripping their eyes out one by one. I lost myself in their pain.
Time passed, but I didn’t heal. I tried to grieve my mother and the betrayal simultaneously.
I couldn’t. Instead, I drifted and dreamed. I always dreamt of him kissing me and transforming into a monster.
I’ve known what he was from the start, but I didn’t care. I thought I differed from the other girls. He never loved them like he loved me.
I was special. I was nonchalant and cool.
I would do whatever he wanted just to keep him from leaving me.
He loved to crack open my ribs and eat me from the inside out. He was more than happy to break apart my skull and tongue fuck the whorls and contours of my brain.
I let him do it all.
I only faltered when he asked if he could carve out my heart.
He scowled at my hesitation and his phone out, ignoring me.
“Well, if you don’t want to…” He said. His phone chimed over and over. He reminded me that there were others more than willing to give him what he wanted.
He could easily erase me since I was just a sentence in his book.
I let him do it. I consented to him carving out my heart. The pain was one I had never felt before. I watched as he reached inside my chest and pulled out my quivering heart.
He swiped my tears away and lifted my chin to force me to look. He bit into my heart, relishing the first and only bite. The rest he threw onto the floor, his face twisted in disgust.
When he walked away, I knew then that it was over. I watched him go and cried until I couldn’t.
I had given him everything until I could no longer. I let the monster destroy me.
The shadows saved me. They showed me what I did not want to become. When they embraced me, there was nothing but emptiness. It hurt more than the crippling grief.
They kept me company. They stitched me back together and listened to me.
That entire summer I wailed, and I cursed. Why did everyone I love leave?
A year has gone by and the shadows are all but gone. I see them sometimes, twitching in the moonlight. They keep watch over me.
Grief is a different pain. It will never go away. I ache for my mother and I am destroyed because I will never see her again. I hope and genuinely believe that she is waiting for me and when I need her, she’s here.
I think of the monster. I reminisce about the good times we shared, the deep rumble of his voice, and the way he held me as he traced the entirety of my body with his lips.
But then I remember his smile on our first night together. The smile that widened, unveiling rows and rows of sharp teeth. He buried his head in my neck and bit into my skin.. He scraped delicate bone with his teeth and tore apart many veins. He drowned himself in my pain.
I let him.
He wanted to turn me into one of his undead. Past lovers whose numbers he kept just in case he was in need.
I wasn’t one of them, although I nearly was.
I escaped and took my heart back. I picked it up off the dirty floor.
The shadows helped me push it back in. They healed me and stopped me from becoming one of his corpses.
I worry though. I worry about the girls who don’t realize that there is a killer out there stalking us.
He has already found his new victim. Her face is one of innocence. He will enjoy breaking her apart.
The girl whose smile I memorized last year is gone. He has erased all traces of her from his social media. But he is still showcased on hers. In her profile picture, his eyes glitter in pleasure while hers are flat and empty. She’s gone, there is no coming back for her.
But I have a secret because the shadows tell me everything.
They tell me he’s not as strong as he used to be. He requires more and more than the days go by. He’s slowly starving and he’s scared. Good, he should be.
He stalks us to stave off boredom and loves us because he’s addicted to loving. He wants the perfect woman, but perfection does not exist. That’s when he turns on us, rejects us, and finds somebody fun and new. The cycle repeats until it doesn’t. More of us walk away.
He feeds on us to feel. He’s jealous that we don’t require others to live.
He tries to replicate our humanity, but he won’t, he can’t.
He never will.
aelily 