Deadly Obsession - Chapter 22 (Patreon)

Charlie 

What is it about animals that scares us?

It’s their claws, strength, and sharp teeth right?

Wrong.

Dogs have those. Cats have those. Even lizards have those traits, but we don’t fear them. What scares us the most about animals is when they become unpredictable. When the possibility of those teeth and claws ripping into your chest and your left wondering how the thing you loved and nurtured all these years suddenly turned on you.

I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, staring at the packed suitcase in confusion. Romelo hasn’t spoken to me, nor has he looked at me in the past few days. He comes home and heads straight into his ‘playroom’. But he hasn’t taken me there. Not once. Sometimes he comes home with an abnormal amount of blood on his clothes and an empty stare. I have no idea what he’s thinking in the slightest.

I look up as the door to my bedroom opens, and in comes the center of my thoughts. He looks around the room, his eyes landing on the suitcase, and then shifts his gaze to me. He stares at me for a moment, then he smiles. An involuntary shiver runs up my spine. Romelo’s smiles are so rare. Don’t get me wrong, when he smiles it’s like he’s a whole different person. He’s beautiful. But it’s a foreign fit on his face.

He comes towards me and kneels in front of me, grabbing my hands in his. He glares at my hands for a moment before speaking.

“Charlie.” His voice is smooth. He looks up at me, and I see no malice in his gaze. But something else that is as rare as his smile. Confusion.

“I’m sending you away,” he says. My heart stutters a beat, those four words destroying my existence. My grip on his hands tighten as panic sets in.

“What?” I ask breathlessly. He let’s go of one of my hands and reaches up to tuck a curl behind my ear.

“I’m sending you away,” he repeats. I open my mouth to protest, but he places his finger against my lips.

“You’re messing with me. Who I am.” His gaze darkens.

“I am not this man you’re wanting me to be. I’m not soft. I’m not... loving and caring. I’m screwed up, Charlie. My whole life has been a mass of blood and death and violence.” He lets out a soft laugh.

“Until you came along. Even when you paraded as a boy, I felt I had a light in my life. Someone to help me out of that dark hole of misery. And then the true you was revealed.” He shifts higher, so that his hands clasp around my face, holding my gaze to his. I stare with wide eyes at the deranged glint in his eyes.

“And you’ve been mine ever since. My beautiful, pure, loving, Charlie. Able to produce the emotions I’ve never been able to, no matter what.” He runs his thumb along my cheek.

“There was so much love and adoration from you. No matter how cruel I was to you. You will always be the only woman for me. But right now, I can’t be that man for you. And you don’t seem to understand that.” He let’s go of my face, standing over me.

My hands are shaking. I’m trying to focus on the man in front of me, but it seems all but impossible. My whole world is shattering and dying. My whole world... is sending me away. What did I do? My eyes are burning as tears form, and spill over. I stand up.

“Is this because of what I did? If it is, I’m sorry, I was just... not myself,” I say. He isn’t paying attention to me though. He’s staring out the window. His back is to me. He finally turns away from the window, and looks at me.

“Sit down, Charlie.” His voice is like a whip. My legs crumble underneath me, and my eyes fall on the suitcase in the corner. He’s really sending me away. I’ve never been separated from Romelo in my life. And now he’s voluntarily sending me away.

He turns back to me, with an unreadable expression. He’s just studying me. I haven no idea what he sees or what he is looking for. His face, nor his stance gives that away.

“What is it you want from me, Charlie? You can be honest,” he says. He’s watching me closely. It’s making me nervous.

“I...” I trail off, looking at my hands. I can’t hold his gaze. I never can.

“I just.. I want you to love me like I love you,” I say. The room is quiet, and Romelo walks towards me. His shoes come into my eye line, and I look up at him. I will never get used to those eyes. That cruel, cold, empty gaze.

“I will never love you, the way you love me, Charlie.”

Those words hurt. They do. But he isn’t done tearing me down. He trails his fingers through my loose curls.

“See, if someone touched me, I would kill them. Not love them.” His eyes drift to my throat, and he begins tracing the tattoo he put there.

“If they put something on my flesh without my ok, I wouldn’t want affection from them, I would want to rip their flesh off with a barber blade, and feed it to them.” His fingers trail from my neck to my side where the brand is.

“If someone burned me...” His voice drops to a sinister tone.

“I would burn them alive. One limb at a time.” His gaze finally travels up to my face, and I see irritation. He’s irritated. At me.

“The things I’ve done, are not normal. Nor are they forgivable. Yet, you are so... naïve, that you don’t think twice about your emotions for me. Why is that?” he asks. He brings his thumb up, running it along my forehead where the scar now heals.

“Is it because I saved you all those years ago?” he asks. I don’t know if he wants me to answer or not, so I stay silent.

“A sane person would have turned you in to the police, had them reunite you with your family. Not keep you for torture.” He let’s out a bitter laugh.

“I don’t even think you know right from wrong, Charlie. You don’t even know how to navigate the fucking world without my help. You relied on me all these years, never once thinking about you.” He’s so angry. His fingers quickly close around my jaw, and he squeezes hard.

“Why is that?” Each of his sentences cut deeper and deeper through me. And now, I’m a sniveling mess. But he doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t falter, nor waver. He’s straight faced interrogation mode as he waits for my answer. And even now, when he admits what he did isn’t normal, when he tells me how ridiculous it is for me to love him, I still wish that he would just love me.

“Twenty-one years, Charlie. Your father doesn’t even know who you are. Nor does he care. And that’s all thanks to me.” His gaze narrows.

“Can’t you find it somewhere in that weak fucking heart to hate me, or resent me?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, shaking my head.

“Why do you want me to hate you so bad?” I whisper. He let’s out a deep sigh.

“I don’t know how to be the man you want me to be Charlie. Nor do I want to be. All of that stuff I do for the public eye, it isn’t who I am. I can’t have you going through another break like you did because you can’t understand that.”

I finally look at him, and stare. This is it. This is the boy I grew up with. The broken one that doesn’t understand human emotion or feeling. His parents fucked up version of love and hate, and abuse and violence. All pushed onto him.

“I’ve told you before, I love you. But it isn’t something tender and sweet. It’s violent and dangerous,” he says. His gaze is trained on the floor, his eyes have gone distant.

“I want to.. hurt you so bad. I want you to understand day in and day out, that you belong to me, Charlie. Every time I see smooth flesh, I want to mar it with brands that show the world who it is you belong to.” He looks up at me, and I don’t fight the shiver that crawls up my spine. And he sees it. He smiles.

“I want you to always know, and always remember, that no matter what, I saved you. I clothe you, feed you, fuck you, keep you safe. That’s my job. That’s what I do. And when an urge comes over me, I act out on it. With you. Because no matter what I do to you, no matter how far I pushed you, you always, always come back. Your love is the only love I’ve ever known. It’s unconditional.”

I don’t know how to respond. His whole sentence just frightened the hell out of me. He just admitted to never planning on changing. And he knows me so well, that he knows no matter what I will still love him through it.

I open my mouth, and close it not knowing what to say. Will this be my life? This constant roller coaster of torture? And what about when we are married? What about our children? The thought has yet to cross my mind. I can barely take care of myself let alone raise a whole other human being. Will Romelo hurt them as well?

I feel Romelo’s hands under my shirt, running over my stomach and pushing me back on the bed.

“Promise me, you’ll never hurt yourself again,” he says in my ear. His mouth travels to my throat, and he presses a soft kiss there.

“Promise me, Charlie,” he repeats.

“I…” I trail off. I can’t promise him that. Who knows when he’ll push himself too far. When he’ll act out and take me to the edge with him.

“I can’t live without you,” he murmurs. He knows how to get to me. He knows exactly what to say to make me cave. Make me do anything for him.

“I...” I trail off again. There’s a war inside of me, a battle for what I want. I want him, in any form I can get. But I can’t have him in the form that I want. How do I even begin to cope with that?

“Charlie… I’m waiting.” His voice is growing impatient.

I place my hands softly against his chest, and he stops, moving with my motions. I sit up, and he follows me. I look at where my hands are against his chest, and slowly move them up, feeling his smooth skin as my fingers pass over his throat. I keep my hands moving, until his face rests between my palms. I use my thumb to feel the texture of his cheek.

I stare at the man in front of me with deep wonder. He’s such a beautiful man. His are so blue… so cold. So confused. I offer him a soft smile as tears slowly well up, spilling over.

“You know me so well, don’t you know I could never do anything to hurt you?” I say. His eyes widen slightly, and he reaches up, placing his hand over my wrist, holding onto it.

“I know.”

“Then you know, that you don’t have to send me away to make me understand, Romelo. I get it now. I know,” I say.

My voice is so quiet, so soft. I’m trying to prevent it from shaking, but I can’t.

Romelo’s eyes shift over my face.

“You know I love you, Charlie. Right?” he says. I nod my head.

“Just not in the way you want me to.” He adds.

I look down at my lap, and nod my head. In this moment, I am accepting my fate. Accepting that the rest of my life, with this man will be no different than the beginning of my life. Nothing will change. Nothing. But I am the fool that loves him despite it. I am the idiot that will always come back, no matter what. Because in my eyes, he’s that boy I grew up with. That boy that was capable of anything, including love. He protected me. He saved me. He took care of me. And I will forever love him for it. In a way that’s different than the way that he loves me.