HARD FEELINGS

Make no mistake, darling, you are mine. My wife. My princess. Your enemies are my enemies. Your problems are now my problems. I will destroy anyone who threatens you. I will tear them limb from limb, painting the snow with the blood that runs through their veins before presenting you with the stakes used to pierce their blackened hearts.

I was staring death in its face and it was not kind or merciful or gentle. Death was dark and frightening and though it looked beautiful, I understood the horrors that lay underneath.

Life was funny like that. Choices we could have made, things we could have done, always seemed to come when the most horrible of realities faced us head-on.

“Do you have any idea what that’s like? To want something so badly, to be forced to remain near it day in and day out, and to not act on it?”

Being alive for such a long time had made me forget about the beauty that could be found in the world around me.

For a moment, nothing else mattered. Entire worlds were made and destroyed as we stared at each other.

Like fairy tales told to young children at night, love was a fabrication created to make people feel better about their marriages.