Not in the romantic, butterflies-in-the-stomach way. This was a clinical, creeping paralysis that started at my mouth and spread to my fingertips. He pulled back, smiling that crooked smile, and said, “See? Told you I was trouble.”
My lips tingled. A ghost of the old numbness.
For six months, I thrived on him. He was a stimulant and a sedative. He made me feel brilliant, beautiful, seen. But he also made me cancel on my friends, skip my thesis meetings, lose sleep because he’d call at 2 AM threatening to drive his car into the river unless I talked him down. darling venom pdf
I looked at him—really looked. The crooked smile wasn't charming anymore. It was a rictus. The vulnerability wasn't intimacy. It was a trap.
The venom was the part of me that believed I could absorb his pain without dying myself. Not in the romantic, butterflies-in-the-stomach way
The venom had an expiration date.
“Everything is fiction until it happens to you,” he said. Told you I was trouble
After three weeks of hell, the numbness began to fade. After two months, I could breathe without tasting ash. After a year, I finished my thesis on—ironically—synthetic neurotoxins and their antidotes.