God of Fury (Legacy of Gods #5) by Rina Kent

I’m withdrawing from social circles with all sorts of excuses. Studies. Work. Pending deadlines.

I just don’t have the energy to deal with anyone or anything at the moment. But more alone time only pushes me toward bad habits.

Cutting and blood and fucking self-loathing.

I’m spiraling and I can’t stop it.

I’m falling and can’t hit the bottom.

My hand trembles and the plaster that I covered with my thick watch burns. The injury tingles and my blood pumps into the barely healing cut.

The doomsday feeling racks my brain and saliva floods the inside of my mouth.

Tick.

You’re so fucking weak.

Tick.

A disgrace.

Tick.

Fucking useless.

The brush falls from between my shaky fingers and hits the floor, leaving an orange stroke on the plastic.

I open the drawer to my right and grab my Swiss Army knife almost on autopilot. If I just open it one more time, no one will know.

If I just purge the black ink surrounding me, I won’t feel trapped in my own skin and it’ll be over.

Except that I repeated those same words the last five fucking times I did this. Five times in the span of two weeks. Five.

Bloody hell. I’m losing control.

And yet my fingers wrap around the handle and I remove my watch and then place it on the table. I peel off the plaster and stare at the dark-red skin. The last time I did this, the cut was so deep, I lost a lot of blood. I thought it’d never heal and I’d need stitches.

The skin mended itself back together again, fruitlessly hoping for closure, for healing, like a fucking masochist.

The first time I cut myself was by accident when I was shaving at seventeen. I watched the tiny droplet of blood rolling down my jaw and neck and felt an immense sense of relief.

It was the first time I looked at myself for a solid minute without feeling the need to smash the mirror.

So I became a bit careless with my shaving and cut myself here and there just to see more of my blood. The harder the blood flowed, the more the black ink receded.

But I didn’t do it often. I was extremely careful not to make my parents suspicious. So when Dad joked that maybe he should teach me how to shave again, I stopped doing those small nicks on my face and neck.

I started shaving down there and cutting between my thighs where no one could see. I would sit in the bathtub and watch the blood trickling out of me, close my eyes and suck in clean air.

After I started uni, I began cutting my wrist, but only in the exact same spot, drawing over the three lines that could be hidden by a watch.

But I didn’t let myself do that often, either. No more than once a month, maybe. When the nausea constricted my throat and I couldn’t breathe without gagging on the black ink.

When it hurts to the point I can’t exist within my own fucking skin.

The frequency hiked up in the past couple of weeks to the point that I can’t control it anymore.

When I was with Nikolai, I didn’t do it, because he was awfully perceptive. He could sense something was wrong with my hand and arm and kept asking about it for weeks. I kid you not, he would be like, “By the way, how did you hurt your hand? It looks serious.”

Considering all the sex, I didn’t dare cut my thighs, and the weird part is that I wasn’t really overwhelmed by the urge to see my blood.

It was manageable, until it wasn’t.

Until now, where I’m fantasizing about cutting my fucking wrist off.

“Hon…please. I’m so worried about you. Please talk to me. Tell me something. Anything.”

Mum’s words from earlier rush into the fog and I release a shaky exhale. I told her I loved her and then hung up, because I couldn’t deal with the pain in her voice.

Dad called me and I didn’t pick up, because hearing the concern in his voice would undo me. It scares me that I’m the disappointment who’s nothing like him in any shape or form. He might have been strict with Lan, but, really, that’s because he reminds him of his younger self.

I’m the fucking anomaly who only ever caused my parents' concern. A fucking hurricane of disappointment and failed potential.

A vibration pulls me out of the trance and I blink twice, then reach for the phone with my injured hand, slightly trembling, my heart lodged in my throat.

Over the past couple of weeks, my coping method to get over the never-ending withdrawal was texting myself as if I were texting Nikolai.

I have enough pride to not contact him after he dumped me, but it didn’t hurt to send those texts to myself. Pretending it was him. At least, that way, I got to express what I felt in words.

Daft words like:

Why did you come into my life if you were going to leave?





Why did you make me addicted to you if you didn’t plan to stay?





If I say I’m sorry will you come back?





You were never a booty call. I don’t even do those. And I’m the fucking toy, not you.





I don’t even like running anymore. You ruined it like everything else. Fucking bastard. Fuck you.





I’m messed up, Nikolai. Extremely so. You should be glad to have dodged a bullet.





I hate myself. Why don’t you hate me, too?





Oh, right. You do now. Finally. Congrats on the wake-up call. Better late than never.