Vanquish

You don't really know someone until you see them in the dark.

They both carried a million cracks beneath the skin. Even under the stark light of the fluorescents, it was hard to see which of them was more broken. But for the first time, she felt like she had to vanquish her mental illness not for herself but for someone else. Because she was broken with him, and if she fixed herself, maybe she could make him a little less broken, too.

After I flay the skin from your body, I'm going to dye it and sew it into a handbag. Special order from your momma.

Love and hate are closely related expressions of the same intensity. Both require passion, and neither follows logic.

He tipped her a crooked smile, made of sugar and shit.

Sometimes you have to step back to open the door.

Separation from people hadn't cured her need to please. She longed to lift the hem of isolation, look into eyes full of acceptance, and see in them the reflection of a woman who didn't give a rat's ass.

Her lips slid into a foxy grin. “I made little Van voodoo dolls and stabbed them with toothpicks.

Her naiveté would be the first thing vanquished by the hard, heavy weight between his legs.

I'm the inescapable curse that caught you when you opened your door.

Eliminating the toxicity in your life is not a failure. It's curative and courageous and never, ever easy.

I'm sorry" Whatever she heard in his voice, perhaps the reedy vulnerability in his otherwise controlled tone, brought her hands out from beneath him to grip his jaw and guide his face into light. She stared up at him for a long, terrifying moment, her eyes searching, her lips rolling together. Then her fingers moved to his temples, combing through the hair over his ears, tenderly, lovingly, in a way he didn't deserve. Her gaze didn't waver from his as she swallowed. "I will never forget. But maybe someday, I might be able to forgive.

I'd like to make you an offer.

Fuck him, but he wanted to be her security, her anchor, her fucking everything. Not as her captor but as her lover.