"Good times and diamond rings
Red eyes and plastic kings
Am I alright? Am I alright?
Don't comfort me
I'm feeling fine; I'm feeling fine
In this brand new dream"
-
I'm dancing with Harry.
Ohmygod. What the actual fuck.
One of his large hands grips tightly at my waist while the other crushes one of my hands that he holds close to his heart. I try uprooting myself away from him, but he only pulls me closer by my hip.
His grip hurts.
He's touching me. He's touching my hand, my waist, my chest is pressed up against his.
Get off me. Get off me, get off me, getoffme, getoffme, getoffme-
Oh, God. I'm going to be sick.
The room starts spinning; my stomach starts churning, my palms start sweating, I'm shaking — horribly shaking.
I can't breathe. My throat closes up on me. I feel like I'm choking on water. I'm paralyzed, and my limbs refuse to move when I feel his warmth trickling into me.
I feel unclean and violated, and it throws me back into the deep end of those torturous memories always lingering in the back of my mind.
Touch is a trigger; that's why I hate it so much. Touch forces me to relive the night I spent hours washing blood off my red-stained hands because, even after the blood washed off and disappeared down the drain, I could still feel it on my body, crawling under my skin and seeping into my veins like a disease.
I was scrubbing away much more than just blood that night. I was scrubbing away the impurities, the scars, the darkness until I was bleeding yet again, hoping that would somehow fix my brokenness.
On the bad days, I still do it. I scrub and scrub until it hurts and my skin is raw, but it never works. It never fucking works.
"Not so brave now, are you, Rosaline?" He looks down at me, his face twisting with a sick type of amusement.
Is my struggling entertaining, dickhead?
I realize Harry is a lot scarier now that we're face to face. Messy deep brown curls tumble past his broad shoulders, a few unruly strands falling before his downward stare. Tattoos litter his chest and neck but disappear under his black button-up with three buttons undone at the top. His eyes, which I admire more often than I should, are dilated, redrimmed and bloodshot. On top of that, they seem almost unnaturally dull and bottomless.
They say eyes are the window to the soul, but...
I don't see any soul here.
All at once, my blood runs ice cold.
He's high, isn't he?
Fear is a close friend — a constant in my pathetic life but, there's something about those bloodshot eyes and those large hands squeezing me that has me reeling.
Something in me snaps.
I try telling myself that fear is only specific chemicals released to send my immune system into a panic, but it's so much more than just that. This is more than just science.
Fear is a constant hammer on the head and heart.
Fear a fire tearing apart a home with the family stuck inside.
Fear is paranoia and lack of control.
Fear is shackles locked tight around my neck, hands, and wrist — I'm its prisoner.
Fear is a hot knife in my gut, slowly twisted until I'm choking on my own blood.
"L-Let go of me."
"No, I don't think I will," Harry says gruffly and ends up pulling me even closer. His chuckle is low and throaty when I whimper. He leans down and murmurs, "You're really starting to piss me off, princess," with his lips brushing past the shell of my ear.
I gave one last powerful tug to get away from him, but it was futile. He's dug his hooks into me, and he doesn't look like he'll be letting go anytime soon.
Listen, If I throw upon him, that's his problem, not mine. I don't give a fuck about the Gucci shoes he's wearing.
His hot breath fans across my face. He smells of cigarette smoke and whiskey. "D-don't call me princess."
He starts slowly swaying me around under the red light, a fake smile etched into his pink lips. I trip over my own two feet, trying to fight him off, but it's no use. His grip on my waist is so strong that he drags me around on the floor to this sensual, slow music.
Sadistic, sick fuck.
"I'll call you whatever the hell I want to call you, princess." He rasps, patronizing me. He tilts his head when I turn away to look at anything and everything that isn't him.
If I screamed, would anyone help me? Something tells me that no — no one would get involved with anything concerning this man.
Deep down, I don't blame them.
"Are you scared, Rosaline?" He speaks in a rather calm manner. Somehow, it only frightens me more. I try my best not to whimper, but the noise slips past my quivering lips. I guess the way I flinch answers his question. "Good," he mutters, his nose running up the collum of my neck. "that's very good."
Then, he starts humming a familiar tune, but I can't put my finger on just what song it is. Whatever light-hearted melody it might be, it sounds terribly ominous coming from his lips.
He leans back just enough so he can see my face. He's close enough to kiss me. He looks at each of my eyes for a brief moment before those green eyes find my lips. He never stops humming.
His cold fingers brush the hair from my eyes. He stops swaying, and now it's just the two of us, standing chest to chest under the red lights in the middle of The Red Room. From where he holds me on my waist, he runs his hand up, dipping and curving into the shape of my body. His hand slithers against my clothes and skin, causing me to shiver. Goosebumps follow in his wake until he stops, his hand gripping the back of his neck.
"Look at me, baby," he utters in a soft, lethal tone. "look at me right now."
"W-what do you want?" I stammer, breathing heavily in and out from my nose. My panting fills the thick and tense space between us.
"I said-" his fingers run-up, and he tugs my hair at the nape of my neck, which snaps my head back. I can't stop the small yelp that slips past my lips. He snarls. "Look. At. Me." For whatever reason, I listen to him, and now I'm stuck staring at those green eyes that are boring into mine with a frenzied, bottomless stare.
"I'll tell you one time and one time only, Rosaline." The way he hisses my name reminds me of why I hate it. He isn't the first man to utter my name before hurting me.
He guides his hand that's crushing my own behind him. I can feel the coldness of his rings as he flattens my palm against his back. "You're standing on very thin ice. Do you want to know what happens when you fall through that ice?" He slides my hands lower and lower until-
My stomach drops.
He stops moving my hand when I feel something cold and heavy in the waistline of his pants. "Well, I'm sure you can imagine what happens then."
"P-please," I beg with everything I have left in me. It's too much, too much, too much, too much-
I shake my head and try to push away my racing thoughts that only send me further away from reality — that send me spiraling. "please, stop touching me, I can't-" I shake my head when I feel the tears building in my eyes. I want to scream.
The pain in my stomach forces me to hunch over. I can feel the searing hot pain of the knife being driven into me all over again.
I close my eyes. No, no, no, no. Not again.
I couldn't move. There was so much blood.
My chest gets unbelievably tight, so tight, my hand grips at the fabric of my shirt right above my heart. I feel like a child trying to stop my crying, hiccuping, drooling, struggling to take in air, and form a coherent sentence.
"I can't take it anymore; please stop touching me. Y-you, don't understand I can't handle it-"
He abruptly pulls himself away from me, and my knees almost give out. I let go, crying.
Dirty. I feel dirty, unclean, filthy, impure and-
Infected.
He fixes his collar, and his face is now completely stoic. He looks me up and down. It feels like an insult and, somehow, it hurts more than the words he could have possibly uttered out instead. "I'm not a good man, Rosaline. Don't start something you can't finish."