Ava Ayers

“My mother calls it the pretty hate.
It comes on you like a fever when someone you love up and leaves you with nothing but silence. You turn the hate on yourself as you cannibalize your heart while the rage burns through you and polishes your desperation into a diamond. It is one of the cruelest things in the world to do to another human being.
Don’t do that.”
― Ava Ayers, Pretty Hate

“Should I stop?” he said.
I heard voices from far away and he stopped moving his fingers. I grabbed his wrist and pressed his hand into me.
“Please,” I said, “please don’t stop.”
“Oh, so I shouldn’t?” he said and chuckled. “That would be cruel of me, wouldn’t it?”
I felt such pressurized pain, the tingle turned to a cold numb that made me shake.
“Yes,” I said and stared into his eyes, “and you’re not cruel, are you?”
He bit the side of my neck and nibbled on my earlobe as he breathed heavily into my ear.
“I am the cruelest man you will ever meet, Beth,” he said into my ear, “but, I will make you feel so good, you will not care.”
I stared into Declan’s eyes and knew that he told the truth. And just like he said, I did not care.
His fingers went back to work and I felt as if I was being dragged out to sea by this incredible undertow. It did not matter that I was drowning or in the company of the cruelest man in the world. I only cared how he made me feel and, at that moment, I never felt better.”
― Ava Ayers, Pretty Hate