If Fire Was A Lover

December 20th, 2022

I checked my phone to see how long I'd been parked across the street from his house. 30 minutes I'd been there. I turned my attention back towards his house and stared through the windows. Terrance was watching a war film on the big T.V. Scarlett was walking back and forth in front of him, probably trying to convince him to turn on a cartoon. Logan's bedroom light was on, I could see him passing by the window, my eyes were glued to the purple wall behind him. Was I crazy? I certainly felt crazy sometimes. My therapist always told me that I wasn't crazy, that I was just healing. "Everyone heals differently." She would say. But most people didn't stalk their ex-boyfriend's house. I felt like I had to. I was still stuck in that room, still stuck in his bed. I could be miles away, but in my head I was always there. Logan's house was haunted by the ghost of me. Logan walked through the front door and headed to his truck, I quickly ducked down in my car hoping he wouldn't notice me. I heard the engine start and listened to him drive away, and then I started the drive home.

Mom looked concerned when I came through the door. "What took you so long, honey? School ended almost an hour ago," She asked.

"I just needed to clear my head. You want to drug test me or something?" I laughed.

"No, no. Just wondering." She said calmly.

I walked down to my room and collapsed on my bed. I closed my eyes and I was in his room, he was on top of me, I was saying no, he was gripping my sides and digging his nails into my skin. I tried to push him off of me, he kissed my neck, and I hugged him. Then I opened my eyes and realized I was still in my room, he was not there, and he never would be. And I didn't know if I was happy about that or not.

"Elizabeth," said a man.

I turned to my closet where I heard the voice, Logan's voice. He was standing in the closet, his hands in his pockets.

"No, you're not real." I closed my eyes. My breaths became shorter and shorter.

"But you want me to be," he whispered, coming closer. I could smell his old spice body wash and his woodsy cologne.

"I want you to be sorry," I cried.

"I am not." He told me.

"Get out!" I screamed.

"Elizabeth?" My mom yelled. "Are you okay?" She raced down the stairs to my room. He was gone.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. I started to have a nightmare, it's nothing." I said, my breath shaking.

"Oh, okay. I love you, kid." She said.

"I love you too," I told her. She went back upstairs and I exhaled a long breath.

That hadn't happened in a while, seeing him while I was awake. Usually it was only in my dreams. That was another reason that I felt crazy. Normal people didn't see people who weren't really there, they didn't converse with the ghost of a past lover. My poor mother always got so worried when I would do that, sometimes she was right outside my door. She always knew I was lying when I told her I was dreaming. She knew I was wide awake, being haunted by someone who didn't want me. I was pathetic. I wasn't healing, I was slowly turning into someone who belongs in a ward. I was stalking someone, I was imagining him, I was talking to him when he wasn't there, I was hardly sleeping at night, and I didn't really know who the hell I was.

"God," I whispered. "If you're up there, please fix me. Please, just fix it all." He didn't answer me, he never did. I had better odds at getting my dad to speak to me than God to answer a prayer.

I wondered if I would ever be free of Logan, and if he would ever be free of me. I didn't want to let him go. I wanted to torment him for as long as he lived. If he got married I'd send letters to his house, vaguely addressing the crimes he committed. I'd slash his tires, I'd kill him. It was the only thing that would make it fair, to kill him. In the Bible, it preaches an eye for an eye. I think God would agree that it's only fair to say a soul for a soul. Logan ruined mine, I would destroy him. If it was the last thing I did, I'd kill him. Whether it was my hands or his, he would die thinking of me. He'd spent his last moment regretting everything he ever did to me, and repenting for the things he said to me, the way he thought of me. He'd regret it on his deathbed. Or was that just a fantasy? He wouldn't really spend his last moment thinking of me. He'd probably be excited to meet his child who went to the next life before he did. He'd be happy he was able to experience a healthy kind of love with Lily. I wouldn't even cross his mind, not in life and not in death.

I grabbed a couple of my anxiety pills and swallowed them with the day old coffee on my desk. I had to keep telling myself that moments Ike that were just part of the healing process. I felt like I was getting better, but not in a permanent way, more like a one step forward and three steps back kind of way. I felt like Logan was waiting for me to get better so that he could ruin me all over again. Hurting others is what got him going, it made him happy and sometimes it turned him on. No matter how many years I would spend trying to move on from him, he'd always be there in the back of my mind whispering, "Come back to me, you know you want to." And he'd be right. There would always be a small part of me that wanted nothing more than to go back to him.

When I told my therapist that Logan was always cold, she frowned and a line appeared between her eyebrows.

"What do you mean?" She had asked.

"He's cold to the touch." I told her. "His skin is cold, his hands are cold. Even his tongue was cold inside of my mouth. It was always such an odd feeling when he kissed me. I thought mouths were supposed to be warm, and kisses were supposed to be sweet and romantic. He changed all of that."

"You know, Logan hardly sounds human." She told me.

"I know." I whispered.

"Everything you tell me about him makes me think off something supernatural, something demonic." She said. I looked up at her confused. "He hasn't been human for quite some time. He's possessed by some kind of spirit. He let it into himself through porn most likely. Now he just craves sex, he doesn't care of it's consensual or not. He just wants to feel pleasure, and he wants to hurt other people. He isn't human, Elizabeth." Her words changed something inside of me. After that session I started to see him as what he really was. A demon. I always knew that he was not really human, but I didn't know exactly what he was.

I laid in my bed and closed my eyes, trying to recall the rest of that session. I told my therapist about how his laugh was human, and so was his smile, and his curly brown hair. The rest of him, however, was something completely different. His mind was poisoned, he didn't know how to love anyone and he didn't really know how to exist.
I hated him. And I loved him so much. I knew he was hurting, and I wanted nothing more than to run to his house and knock on his door in the middle of a snow storm. He would let me inside and I'd wrap my arms around him and tell him that I was so sorry he and Lily lost the baby and that I hoped he was okay. And he'd be happy to see me, he'd be smiling through his tears. But it would ware off, as it always did. And I'd be nothing to him, again. The hardest thing I'd ever have to accept was that Logan didn't need me anymore. Not as a punching bag, not for sex, not for affection, not for conversation, not for anything. He didn't need me anymore, and he never would.