Being The Host

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The nights are the hardest. Sleeping is impossible. Keeping myself under control seems insane. I get no sleep and feel nothing anymore. Only when his bright eyes illuminate mine, I feel there. I feel there's still hope for me yet.

I lay down every night with my back turned to him in fear of holding him in my arms, the fact that I know what they're capable of doing being imminent. I've told him I didn't need a reason if he believed me when I said I didn't like to get close. Instead, he asks to hold my hand while he sleeps. I always agree.

He worries about my eating habits. I either eat too much or too little, and he told me it worried him. I always apologize for it, but continue. I want to fix everything about myself, but he won't let me.

"Come on Mark, try two tonight. I know you can do it." He urged me on as I leaned against the brick wall of the abandon mill. I heaved a shaky sigh and shook my head.

"I'm not gonna kill anyone just to quench your sick thirst."

"It's our sick thirst, Mark." He seemed to talk me into lifting my arm out to grab at something invisible in front of me. "Stop being a coward." I shook my head.

"I'm not killing anyone."

"That's what you always say."

Before my eyes lie a bloody teenager's corpse and the dying body of a young woman. My knife was still plunged in her stomach, and she was begging me to unhand it and let her live. I was compelled to sit and watch her bleed to death.

"Good job, I didn't think you'd actually do it this time. Didn't it feel good after all those months?" He asked me as the woman took her final breath. My shaking fingers wrapped around the slender shaft of the knife and pulled it out of the woman, wiping the blood down my shirt.

"I feel bad."

"You're supposed to feel bad! Just think about how Jack would react if he knew what we do late at night. How utterly terrified of you he'd be." My shoulders arose as I clenched my jaw. Jack was the last thing I wanted to be thinking about right now. "Tell me, how do you think he would feel about all of this? How he would feel if you told him you were the one that killed his brother?" Cold tears pricked at my waterline.

"He would kill me."

"Yeah. He would. We killed the most important person in his life. Well, it was mostly me. I wanted you to feel loved because if anyone knew you were a killer, you'd feel like shit all the time."

"Sometimes, I wish you'd shut the hell up, D."

I crept in the front door of our apartment to see Jack asleep on the couch. I shut the door quietly and padded up the steps to our room, shutting and locking the door. I peeled my shirt off and pushed it under the bed so Jack couldn't find it.

After I changed, I went downstairs and started digging in the fridge for something to eat. My stomach felt like a freezer; it was desolate of anything sustaining. I pulled a couple packs of cheese out and reached across the counter for crackers and and tuna dip. I pulled a knife out of the drawer and started into the living room.

I sat down on the couch across from Jack and tried to open the crackers as quietly as I could. Jack's eyes fluttered open as I opened the bag.

"Hey baby," He whispered as he began to stir. I settled my hand in his hair and played with it.

"No no no no no, don't get up. Go back to sleep." Jack reached into my lap and took a cracker and let it sit between his lips as he looked up at me. A dreary smile formed on his lips.

"I love you so much, you know that?" I spoke, my eyes darting around his prominent facial features. He nodded.

"I do. I do know that. You know I love you?"

"Unconditionally?"

"Unconditionally." I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

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