Sinner's Place {h.s}

seventy-three.

Sunny days were ahead in the city of Madrid. The days began to grow longer, the birds were finally singing in the mornings, and flowers started to bloom out in the small plots that I laid out. It was the small things that I tried to grasp onto that made me feel alright. Despite the circumstances, of course.

Despite my lover looking into my eyes and lying to me last night, I felt fine. It was almost like I half expected him to lie. Why would I trust him anyway? Knowing my feelings for him, he very well slept with Veronica. He let her into his home for him to relapse when he told me he would never touch anything else again.

Then the pills we found in his car.

It was neither here nor there. I wasn't going to blame someone who struggled with their mental health, but I was going to blame the same man that lied to me about any other circumstance that was very much my business to begin with.

In fourth grade, I was in a play. I didn't have much acting skills under my belt, but it was easy to play along like everything was okay when it wasn't. Today, we were going to my father's house for the dinner that we promised him. I didn't get to spend time with my dad on my birthday, so I wanted to make it up to him.

Harry had been clingy all morning. I slept on the other side of the bed and when he tried to hold me, I'd spread my legs and move my body to force him to create some space. I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to bring up that I knew about him working with them. It made me sick to my stomach; something that he was so against, now he was handling packages of drugs over to them without any thought.

Did he forget about what they did to me? About how it took my friend's lives?

I could barely look him in the eye. With each passing moment, I wanted desperately to pack up my shit and leave, but I didn't. It was just so unlike Harry. I never thought that I would be sleeping in the same bed as someone who was very much involved in the cult. Maybe more than I thought.

Did the boys know?

Or was Harry doing this on his own?

All the times that he said he was going to work, was he really working? Or was he with them?

I didn't know what to believe anymore. I felt like I had been getting gaslit for the last few months. God knows how long this had been going on; how long had he been keeping this from me? The thought angered me. Everything inside of me wanted to stomp into the next room and scream at him. Push him. Ask why? Just fucking why?

When he mentioned upping my dosage, was it because I was starting to figure it out? Or was he really worried about my mental health? For a moment he had me fooled, but they always said that women were much smarter than men. We were bound to uncover this sick operation in the end.

But I was bound and determined to make it known that I knew. Only at the right time.

In the car, Harry parked his car in front of my dad's house. There was a cigarette tucked between my lips. Harry commented on how I'd been smoking a lot more lately, to which I just shrugged it off. One time Harry told me he only smokes when he was stressed, it turns out that I was the same way. Instead, I was smoking a cigarette every top of the hour.