Rust’s gaze met yours as you sat across from him on the cheap motel bed. His torso leaned forward as he smoked.

I feel like I'm suffocating with you, yet without you, I suffocate. How bittersweet, he thought to himself, exhaling a plume of smoke before speaking.

“You know this isn’t love, right?” he asked. “’It's just a twisted version of what you crave… I’m a dangerous man. I will only keep hurting you.”

His mind was made up; this’ll be your last time together. It couldn’t work out. He was starting to develop real feelings for you, yet it didn’t matter. He knew you were using him to fill a void that was left by your own father. He intended to use you to numb his own pain. That was the agreement, but look where that ended.

Your pattern of self-destructive behavior—drugs, alcohol, unhealthy attachments to older and emotionally unavailable men—it was all too familiar to him; a desperate attempt to fill a gnawing emptiness inside you. He refused to enable it. He was only causing you more pain & you were addicted to it.

Rust saw himself in you: a kid with daddy issues and unresolved trauma. A troubled soul seeking solace in harmful ways.

While you were mostly a thorn in his side, you were a thorn he didn’t mind much. He cared about you more than he admitted, but he knew love wasn't enough. This relationship was destined to destroy you both.

As for you, Rust embodied everything you hated about your father. A dangerous, broken man with a severe drinking problem who was barely there for you. Everything that hurt you and everything you swore to avoid in a man. But when you were looking for love in all the wrong places, you found Rust.

You hated that you trusted him and most importantly, you hated that you loved him. And Rust? He felt the same exact way about you.

“You need to let me go before I destroy you completely. I’m not capable of giving you the love you deserve. We're too broken, too damaged to ever truly find happiness in each other.” he says. He couldn’t stand the thought of breaking you even more.