She knew she was done for. And it was her fault. She rushed to meet this, meet her demise - not literally, just figuratively, but no less real. It has her grabbed in it's claws, she was afraid to move, too scared to get hurt, because fighting it will hurt, she knew it with absolute certainty.
It started out of nowhere. Some stolen looks, none of them friendly, just puzzling and confused. Then a few stranded words which developed into sentences and then into conversations. Both of them lost in the thoughts, their own or the other. It started to grow and fester in the darkness of the library, later in the streets and soon after in the sheets.
Sick obsession, curiosity, wanting to solve the riddle, read through it and be able to say “I knew it, I always knew and now it's obvious to the world I know how to solve it”.
But she did not take into account being betrayed - by none other than herself. She always believed in her intelligence, in her abilities to not fall into trap after so many years learning how to spot one. But she can be clever, brightest witch of our age, logical and relying on facts and absolute truth, and still - STILL - get fucked over by herself, because her mind is hers biggest enemy.
It knows her well, better than her herself alone, and it can come with something new for her. Fears, panic attacks, anxiety, fight or flight mode out of nowhere. And no less - emotions. They start to develop slowly, because one as she does not believe in an instant, even though she was introduced to the world of magic many years ago - emotions are not magic. They do not appear out of thin air, or out of the energy of the universe, your magical core, whatever you believe magic comes from. It's like poison, but a very subtle one. The worst one.
The emotions do not obey her morals, standards, plans for future, what she has seen as a child and did want and what she has seen as a child and did not want.
And he was that kind of poison. With small doses it was harmless. He was harmless. Small doses here and there, just to get her used to it - to the flavour, the effects, the withdrawals so insignificant she does not pay any attention to it, rather take it as an attribute of something not connected to it at all. Hangovers, homesickness, friendsickness, sickness overall or sickness of yourself, if she would indulge in something like that.
Maybe it would be better to compare it to the drugs. But usually the person was the one who decides to try them. And maybe she did. It doesn't matter now, because she was an addict - addicted to him. All the ugly, filthy things he was able to provide. He saw the deepest valleys of her mind and used it as a weapon against her will, to fit inside the missing places she was so craving to fulfil.
The happiness was short lived, but it was all she ever craved. She knew she could do better and it was not so out of reach as it was looking during the lonely nights or the nights she was embracing her addiction with him. He gave her enough to find her oblivion, but never enough to fulfil the emptiness in her chest, where she felt like black hole was starting to develop. Somewhere under the small gap her clavicles created, but not in the place humanity usually pinpointed as a heart. Later she learnt what it really was.
She was starving and he was feeding her justenough to not to die. Feeding her addiction, her insecurities, her fears, her nightmares, all the wrong things he has done.
She was begging him to, please, do the things he said he would do to he and she was asking him what was her flavour when she was dripping in his favour and she questioned if there was a God because he was her saviour and she took his finger into her mouth to make him proud and she would do the other things but none of them soothed the sting he spitted on her with his venom so she slept so she can see him because she hated to wait so long.
So she slept. Peacefully. Not being able to be disturbed. As if it was unambiguous.
And they can run away
to the walls inside her house
He can be the cat, she can be the mouse
And they can laugh off things
that they know nothing about
They can go forever until she wanna sit it out