The first thing you learn when falling in love with a monster…
is that it is never him
who devours you first.
It is yourself.
Your dignity.
Your calm.
Your logic.
Your entire world, burning from the inside before his hands even touch you.
At first, it feels like a caress.
A faint shiver.
A match being gently slid deep into your chest.
Then it grows.
It devours.
It consumes.
Until the day you no longer recognize the woman in the mirror.
Until the day you realize you are no longer a victim,
no longer innocent,
no longer fragile.
Just fire.
A blaze searching for someone who can contain it.
And him…
he had been waiting for you all along.
I used to think people fell all at once.
From a mistake.
From a choice.
I never fell like that.
I slipped.
Slowly.
Silently.
As if every step of my life had led me to him, to that invisible boundary between passion and perdition.
A man I should never have loved.
A man no one should ever have loved.
A man who took everything from me without ever raising a hand.
My breath.
My nights.
My name.
My friends.
My freedom.
I thought I knew what love was.
I knew nothing.
Love didn't break me.
He did.
Him, with his low voice that sets you on fire.
Him, with his hands that hold too tightly.
Him, with his silences that suffocate more than a scream.
He never needed to threaten me.
I already belonged to him.
Body, heart, soul.
And it was only the beginning.
Because here is the second thing you learn when you fall in love with a monster:
You never come out unscathed.
Never.