( ╳ ┊❝ h e a l » c.v. & g.r. )
The past three days had been pure hell for Candice, the news had hit her like a ton of bricks and everything around her almost seemed like it was crumbling down, before she even knew what the hell she was doing she had her arm tied up with a needle in it. Within three days she was already hooked, just like when she was seventeen - knowing what would happen to the people around her she made sure she’d try to cut off any ties to people who cared about her, her family were first. Her parents were confused, as her brothers were, they didn’t question it due to Candice’s mental health problems and assumed she needed time for herself. Then it was her boyfriend, breaking up with him via text was easier than face to face, she was a coward, she couldn’t even let her feelings be pushed aside.
The past two days she had been in her home, alone, her pets and child with her own parents and her with a stash of deadly items. She blamed herself for the incident, and took it out on her body, slashes on her body with sharp objects were covered up by a hoodie and sweatpants, needle marks followed. She had managed to get her filming team to postpone filming due to the incident that had accrued with her friend, he was alone and needed to be.
After she had shot up for the second time today, a sound appeared from her front door. She didn’t want to answer it, she knew who it was and didn’t want to face him, she couldn’t - not the way she was - red eyed with tear stained cheeks. She pulled the hood over her head as the second knock sounded, and pulled herself off the wooden floorboards to head towards her door. The house was filled with boxes, how she made it without tripping over one of them was a shock, and by the third knock, she breathed in. She almost turned back towards her bathroom, but something inside her made her open the door. The bright daylight shinned on her makeup free face, it almost burned.
Words went through her ears, she could barely comprehend them from the hood, “I wasn’t,” she mumbled in response.
Her gaze, so distant and so ( c o l d ), reflected a hunger deep within them – a predatory and insatiable appetite that could only feed on the things that made it w e a k. . . it was a strange and empty paradox that bound her to the drugs that were inevitably killing her – and at the mercy of Candice’s power, he stood as she unraveled him. It was new to him to be this ( v u l n e r a b l e ); to not know the feeling of ( D I S C I P L I N E ). What else could he have expected though? He had given her himself, promised her his everything, and now he was at her feet completely barren – expected to give more when he had nothing else to his name. She dominated him in that sense; making it an easy decision to skip his classes, to give a flying shit about the way people might talk about this incident, and to lay himself down before her. He came because he l o v e d her. Grayson convinced himself this as he took her in.
Candice looked damaged – broken, even – and one glance at her disheveled appearance was enough to cause his heart to lurch. His fingers twitched, perhaps to reach for her and to comfort the trembling in her bruising arms, each little puddle of discoloration a proud medal of her battles, but he curled them instead into a fist. Control. He needed control. “Can I come in?” his voice was low, almost undetectable in the heavy silence between them, and it wavered as he demanded composure from himself. When he was allowed in, Grayson peeled off his winter jacket – exchanging a quiet look between his girlfriend and the slanted frames on the wall. Setting his jacket to the side, he turned to take it all in . . . the mess she left in her raging wake. What once used to be a home was now torn asunder. It seemed as if everything was slanting in now.
The tables were cluttered with evidence, the used needles lying astray and the plastic ribbons dangling from corner to corner. He closed his eyes and tried to work out the image of his girlfriend propped up against the fucking couch – her mouth agape and eyes glazed over in some drug induced high. It was unsettling, to say the least, and more importantly – u p s e t t i n g. “Why?” he found a way to speak despite the fear, the confusion, that was choking at his throat, “Why, Candice?” Grayson leveled his gaze on hers, no longer weakened by her presence, but now strengthened. He needed to be bigger than before, S M A R T E R . Because their relationship only worked when one was in control. And it seemed now, it was his turn to try.
