The Hook

As she gathered the soaked and wilted stems, a familiar dark green stench reaching her nose, she heard the door open. Her grip loosened. She had to catch the dead flowers before they hit the floor. The too-soft stems withering even more in her fists.

“Forgive me. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. The bewilderment in his voice was an unnatural sound to her. Stepping back through the door, he waited for her underneath the porchlight.

Her hands trembled as she pushed the cracked door open. His light hazel eyes were the first thing she saw. She darted her gaze away, not wanting to sink into them. His face was painted in kindness and perhaps even remorse.

She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t settle on which of her conflicting emotions to express. The sun was setting. She could hear the birds calling to each other in the golden light.

He took her hands tenderly. Not moving his gaze from her eyes, he smiled sweetly, “You still feel it too, don’t you?”

“Feel what?” Though she knew. Did she feel it? She certainly felt something…

“You do. I can see it in your eyes. I can feel it in your fingers. We can’t escape each other. After all this time. The others see it too.”

“The others?”

“They’ve said it’s good. We’ve taken this time apart, but it’s obvious we are for each other. You feel it too, don’t you?” He smiled a confident smile. He grasped her hands tighter, pulled her closer.

Her mind was a tangled knot of guilt, fear, and something like desire. Even though she recognized it - she had been caught in this snare before - she still felt a tug at her strings. She thought she had gotten stronger, but perhaps she’d not fully removed his hook from her pierced skin.

She felt the ache of being dragged in and then the familiar comfort of his unwanted lips. Maybe he was right. After all, the others thought it too. What did she know, really? How could she possibly argue? They did have a special kind of connection. No one could possibly know him like she did. Perhaps it was always meant to be this way.

The warning bells were sounding but she could no longer hear them, could only feel their faint vibrations that she had mistaken for the pounding of her passions. Perhaps this is what love is supposed to feel like. Desire and repulsion and chains. The comfort of familiarity.

She could feel the hook in her scarred flesh, sinking in deeper. He had her again. She was his.

Of course. She had been so foolish to think that she could ever be anything else but his. It would always be him. Wouldn't it? The love of her life. Wasn't he?

And then he kissed her goodnight and got into his car. They promised to keep that rekindled flame alight. To keep that connection. To start again. But as he drove away, nausea engulfed her and she began to hear them again. The warning bells. The thoughts and words he'd stuffed into her ears melted away, trickling down the sides of her neck. Then she knew. She would break the promise. She would save herself. He couldn't have her. She reached for the hook, removed it from her flesh and watched it drag across the ground into the road. She breathed in deeply and smiled the haunted smile of a narrow escape.