I didn't want to do this. I wish I could feel something besides all this hate that clings to my heart. I wish I could cry, at the very least pretend it matters to me. Truth is nothing matters, and I'm not really sure if anything ever did.
Why did you have to push me into this? You should have left it alone, should have taken what we've learned and let the past go. Not that I can, the demons still haunt me. Your demons. My demons.
Our demons.
So sneaky they are, creeping up on me just as we got it all together. I prayed for so long that what happened then would just cease to exist. I prayed for a clean slate. I prayed for love. What I got was you.
I know you loved me. That has to be why you stayed, why you wanted to stay. You weren't supposed to love me, though. You were supposed to hate me as much as I hate you.
I *do* hate you, you know. Of course you do, you've known that since day one, yet here you are, laying underneath me. Knowing what I had to do. Knowing I couldn't stop this, stop the hatred from consuming me. Yet all the while you loved me.
I thought you could erase all the things I had done before with your smile. I thought I would just get lost in your eyes, give in to what you offered me and learn to love you. That was the plan, you know. Living happily together for the rest of our lives, to hell with what anyone else thought or said.
You wanted that, didn't you? You wanted the white picket fence and 2.4 children, but you had to know I couldn't give that to you. I know you did. Sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself.
I never had to explain my actions to you. You accepted them with quiet resolve, knowing I couldn't control what I did to you any more than you could control how you felt for me. Don't think the irony has been lost on me. It's the only thing I am really sure of now.
I just...I couldn't live like this anymore. I don't like the man I have become or the man I was. I don't know who I hate more, you or myself, for not stopping this. I don't know who the demons laugh at, you for your stupidity or me for my misplaced guilt.
I'm not guilty for all the things I did to you. I don't regret one single punch I laid you out with. I don't regret putting you in the hospital more times than I can even fucking remember. I don't regret any of that.
What I regret is you loving me, and for that I hate you the most.
You are so beautiful when you're sleeping, hair fanned out all around your delicate face, lips slightly parted and pouty. I hate you for showing me this side of you, hate you for believing that I brought it out in you. I hate you for bringing this out in me.
you are right here, yet you feel a thousand miles away from me, and even through all this hate I long for you. Long for your warmth and love. I shouldn't long for what I despise, but knowing that you are slipping from me takes my own breath, even as my hands are wrapped around your perfect throat, slowing squeezing yours away.
Your eyes flash open, but there is no struggle, no panic in them. You know why I have to do this, and I guess I knew you would let me. You always let me.
But I can't let go this time. I can't keep repeating this cycle. I have to stop the demons from laughing in my head. I have to stop this hatred that wells inside me, caused by your love.
'Why do you love me?'
'Because I have no choice.'
I hope you know I have no other choice but to finally free us of this, of the past that haunts us, the present that that I hate.
I can see the life slip from your eyes, feel it fading in my hands. I can feel the pain from you through my hands. It radiates through your neck into my hands and fans through me as your hair fans around your face in a death shroud.
It's at this moment, the very last second, that I realize why I hate you so. The understanding that you have always longed for, always tried to give me floods me, and I squeeze tighter. I don't want to lose the knowing.
Deep down we knew this is what it would take for me to know. You feel it too, I can tell, as you let your eyes slip closed and accept the way things are. I wish I didn't have to do this, I wish there could have been anther way to know.
Forgive me, Stephanie, for loving you.
