HIM .. Joe Goldberg

HELL

WE LOOK SO FUCKING SEXY in black, Joe. You look like a god in a suit and I'm your stunning wife, the Hera to your Zeus. We're iconic, memorable throughout the centuries. Un-fucking-stoppable.

The sky above is a sickly grey, dead in appearance and as chilled as the cold wind that brushes through your curly dark hair. Your tie waves absently as we walk the graveyard in ceremonial columns, you and I stuck beside each other as the rest of Hannah's family and friends weep inconsolable woes. Me and several other girls wear black lace veils the reach just beyond our chin like the signature badge of a widow, haunted and harrowed by intolerable misery that befell suddenly like wrathful curses coming from the Universe itself. Dark makeup to match the void our lives dived in, the midnight of our forever. Red lips that taste of the fallen's blood; an innocent nymph turned victim and the afterthought of a monster who doesn't deserve his own funeral, who the world doesn't wish to remember.

When it comes time to drop a rose over her casket, you grip my fingers extra tight and whisper, "A love gone too soon," closing your eyes as the flower departs from my hand and falls gracefully over slick wood, and with a sudden breath of disgust I rip my touch away from yours and go towards the rest of the party, surrounding a priest as he finds his way through a Bible.

The Rabbits avoid me, Hannah's family avoids me, her goddamn cousin that once asked if I could do her makeup for her avoids me like I'm still drenched in her slewed demise. I don't care, I told myself I'm better without those bunch of bitches long before I even started getting dressed for the funeral, but you, Joe Goldberg, it's you that changes my mood entirely. Before ten minutes of preaching for our dearly departed had passed, I'm storming against the hideous wind to go light a cigarette by the colossal, black entry gates at the front of the cemetery.

You follow along because you feel obligated, though your reluctance is painfully clear. You stand beside me just as I get my lighter to cough a flame and say, "Are you okay?"

I roll my eyes and say exasperatedly, "No, I'm not." I look at him with an accusatory glare. "What was that? Back when I dropped the rose?"

"What was what?" The innocence in your confusion that I once found endearing now bothered me to no end, and I have to take a long draft of my cigarette just to keep my emotions under control.

I say it quick, not because I want an answer but because I know if I don't get it out, it'll haunt me forever. "Did you love her?"

"Who?"

"Who? Hannah, you fucking moron!" Taking my cigarette between my teeth, I wave my arms around. "You know? The whole reason why we're here? That girl!"

"That girl?" You look repulsed as the words echo from your lips, and you scan me with a scrunched expression. "Brit, are you drunk or something?"

I laugh blackly. "I wish! Then maybe this funeral would at least be fucking bearable." I drop the half finished cigarette and snuff it out with the bottom of my Prada heel. "I knew it. I knew it since our first fucking date-"

"You knew what exactly?" You raise a critical brow, the puzzlement on your features mixed with agitation.

"That you were fucking into Hannah!" I shout. "What is it, Joe? What does she have that I don't?" I'm desperate now, tears clinging to the brim. Eyeliner and mascara begin to irritate my eyes and I try to swipe away the water without too much damage, however when I glance down at my thumb, there's a long black streak. I groan in further frustration. "I'm so sorry that I'm not as skinny or as pretty as she was! But dammit Joe-"

"Do you know where the fuck we are?" You suddenly interrupt, your voice sharp with contempt. I find myself speechless under your anger. "You're seriously comparing yourself to a dead girl right now? Get a fucking grip, Britannia." You try to keep your voice low because we're already attracting the attention of family and friends still mourning at an open grave, but that doesn't erase any of the severity in your tone. I'm shuddering now, because I've never seen you like this. So much anger and repulse and towards me. I hear Charlie coated in your hiss, possessing your tongue, and without realizing it I take a step backwards, pressing my back against the gate.

You begin walking out of the cemetery, only saying one horrible sentence over your shoulder before absconding down the sidewalk and disappearing at the nearest street corner. "And yeah, I did like Hannah. I liked her a lot, actually. Is that what you want to hear?"

Somewhere in Hell, Charlie and the Devil are laughing.