Tribulation [h.s]

49

"Why can't you be good for something?
Not one shirt off your back
Please don't try to find me through my dealer."

-

He always said pain was love.

"I'm doing this to make you strong. I'm doing this because I love you." He always says that. It's always the last words she hears before falling victim to his chaos.

He puts his hand on her shoulder and squeezes. He whispers in her ear. "Aim."

"But, I don't want to hurt him-"

"Aim. You love me, don't you?"

She'd do anything to earn his love — his devotion. Trembling, she raises her arm and aims because, of course, she loves him. She'd do anything for him.

The gun is heavy in her small hands.

She doesn't know the man tied down in a chair before her. She can't even see his face. There's a bag around his head, one that's stained red. She can't see him, but she can still hear him.

He's crying about his wife and kids. He needs to go back home, he says. He needs to be there with his children on Christmas morning. They're young – too young to grow up without a father.

He promises to never step out of line — never again. He promises Hades that he'll be good. But, the unknown man's pleas go through one ear and out the other. Hades loves it when people beg for their life. He relishes in the control he has over someone's fate.

"He hurt me," Hades whispers in her ear.

"He hurt you?" The little girl reiterated. Maybe what she's doing isn't wrong then.

Maybe this is the right thing to do.

"He did," he nods eerily. "He betrayed me." Venom coats his voice that rolls and rumbles like an ocean storm. "So end him. Make me proud."

She knows this is what he does to people who hurt him, but why does she have to do this? Why does she have to be the hand that ends this man's life?

This man has a family. His kids are waiting for him to return home. But, if she resists, she knows Hades won't be happy. He'll hurt her again — just like he did the last time she told him no.

She hates letting him down.

All she's ever wanted is for him to love her. So, she doesn't ask questions. She tries to be strong.

So squeezes the trigger, even though it'll break another piece of her. She pinches her eyes shut when the gun fires. The shot is deafening, and the recoil feels like it shattered her hand. The man stops crying. He stops thrashing in his chair and begging for his life.

When she opens her eyes, he's slumped over, blood staining the bag tied around his head. Hands trembling, heart racing — breaking — she feels sick. She feels ill as darkness settles in her bones.

She had no choice.

She always thought love was a battlefield, something you had to earn: black eyes, bloody noses, and red roses.

While trying to earn his unconditional love, she loses sight of herself; she loses sight of her name – her identity. Her self-worth is burned to ash as her love is poured into the sinner while she suffers alone, self-harming, or worse — being the executioner.

But pain is love, right?

"Who are you?" He asks her, low and conniving.

Like a teddy bear fashioned from glass, she held on tightly to the idea of his love. Yet, the tighter she clung to him, the deeper he cut her. He was poison and chaos, a reaper robbing from her the light of her soul.