They all lied. They told you it would get better, that the pain would ease, but it doesn't.
You miss him.
That's the worst part.
Not that you get yelled at – yelled at – for being possessed. Not that they call you stupid for trusting a diary. The worst part is that you miss him.
. . . . . . . . . .
Soulmates sounds like something wonderful. People think it will be someone to complete you, someone to make you your best self. Someone wonderful. You know better. A soulmate can whisper to you, can pull out your darkest thoughts, can make them seem normal. Can make them seem desirable. Can make you hate everyone who tells you they aren't.
What if the person who understood you best wasn't good, wasn't kind, wasn't caring. What if the person you understand best is cold and dark and –
(don't say it)
evil?
. . . . . . . . . .
Sometimes you lie on the ground in the damp and the wet while the rain weeps around you and you try remember what it felt like to be wanted for yourself. To be wanted.
. . . . . . . . . .
You cut your hand slicing carrots and look down at the line of blood welling up and stand there, stricken, remembering.
. . . . . . . . . .
You go out with boys, good souls, all of them. They are students and athletes and you kiss them behind closed doors and try to convince yourself that this is what you want. And when the same people who called you stupid for falling prey to dark malevolence tease you about them, when they complain and threaten and huff about these bland boys, you want to scream at them. You want to ask what they'd think if you told them about the bitterness heaped in your soul, about how your thoughts linger in dark places.
About how you miss him.
But you don't. You toss your hair and tell them to sod off.
. . . . . . . . . .
You get the diary back. You duck your head and flush and you dissemble and so you get it back and you think it's ruined. It's been stabbed and burned and bled and you cry as you hold onto it. It smells of leaves burnt in the lane in the fall. It smells of death and dying and endings.
You write in it anyway. Tom. Are you still there?
You don't expect an answer.
But you get one.
Barely, he says. I haven't the strength to do anything anymore, he says.
You write and write and write around the edges, avoiding the hole, but he doesn't respond again other than to say, Tired.
What do I do? you ask him. How do I help?
Let me in, he says at last, and, I can't without your help.
Without, you realize, your permission. Without your acquiescence.
You acquiesce. You help. You feel him slide back into your head, into your soul, and as he does the diary becomes finally lifeless in your hands.
And he whispers things to you.
. . . . . . . . . .
You expect him to be upset or moved or angry or anything when you stand there and watch your sometime boyfriend murder his other self. He's not. He almost takes over for a moment, almost kills for you, almost makes you kill when you're threatened, but he's mostly pleased by what happens. You can feel him licking his lips as he watches himself die and you realize that other self was a rival. Was his rival.
Was your rival.
And now he's gone and you, you're one of the heroes.
We can use this, he says to you.
. . . . . . . . . .
A/N – The imagery is this is drawn from "Time does not bring relief; you all have lied" by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
Not sure if it's done. Leaving it marked "in progress" for now.