Bad Decisions - Alex Turner

31. Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby

  It felt like bleeding out. It felt like being a shell of myself. It truly was one of the worst feelings in the world and heartbreak was the perfect word for it because my heart ached and hurt so bad it was almost unbearable.

I had cried myself to sleep and I had cried again once I woke up. Functioning felt impossible. I just felt shattered on my bed and unable to move. The heartbreak was so bad that I almost forgot the relief of it all. I was finally free from the person who hurt me the most yet still I grieved my loss of him.

  I managed to push myself out of bed and run myself a bath in hopes the warm water would help calm me or settle my mind. But I just cried anyway. The only difference from crying in my bed being that I could wash my tears off right away.

  I turned my phone off and left it in another room due to all the calls and messages I woke up to. I didn't feel like talking to anyone about anything. And I definitely wasn't ready to talk about Christian or anything that I found out or anything that had happened the night before.

  I couldn't stop thinking about all the times I'd been at home, thinking Christian was busy working his ass off over the last two years and believing he was faithful when the entire time he'd been cheating on me. The month in Italy? God knows where he actually was and who he was actually with and why he ever asked for photos from me. San Fran? The place itself now just sounded like a fabrication. All the times I'd been so excited to see him when he came back and hugged him and kissed him because I'd missed him so much. Only to realise he hadn't missed me at all and that while I was so ridiculously in love with him, loyal and patient for him to return, he was in between someone else's legs.

  Hot tears began streaming down my cheeks as I remembered all the times he'd said he loved me to make me stay and that I actually believed him. I used his empty professions as my only justification for why I was still with him. Finding out he didn't love me anymore was the worst feeling in the world. I was such a fool.

  The bath water was cold and uncomfortable when I eventually forced myself out; telling myself to stop crying over someone who only ever hurt me and used me. I pulled the plug and grabbed myself a towel to dry myself off, walking in front of the bathroom mirror and feeling my stomach sink.

I could barely look at my own body without seeing him.

My fingertips traced over all the darkening purple marks on my neck and on my collarbone where he'd bitten down the morning before. I was branded by him, that asshole. The only mark on my skin that wasn't from him was the tattoo right below my breast that I chose for myself. And it was overpowered by all of Christian's goddamn marks of lust. They were so dark and vivid against my skin that I doubted any amount of makeup could cover them up.

I began weeping again out of nowhere. I wanted to rub them all off but I already knew they were going to be there a while. Just as a reminder to me that I couldn't escape him even if I wanted to.

"I just want everyone to know you're mine," he said to me whilst he was marking my body. The bastard knew he was going to go off and see his other girl and still he branded me with his poisonous lips so that he lingered even after we'd broken up. Tainting my own skin and making it so much harder to push him away. It was like he was still caging me and ruining my self perception.

I hated him. For the first time in my life I admitted to myself that I hated him. I hated myself for ever letting him in and I hated him for lying to me over and over and not even feeling remorse for it. There was a time where I would've trusted him with the world. Now I wouldn't trust him with anything. I was heartbroken that he'd removed me from his life and himself from mine without so much as talking to me or seeing me in person, but at the same time I knew I didn't want to see his face ever again nor risk him convincing me to go back to him.