(in no way am i romanticizing abusive relationships. i am writing from the song “ultraviolence” by lana del rey. if any of this occurs in any of your relationships with your partner. reach out.)

Demitra always said I made her feel like the center of the universe. That was the problem.

She was sweetness incarnate—sun dresses, honey brown eyes, flower perfume—and I was the storm she let in. I didn’t mean to love her the way I did: sharp, possessive, full of shadows. But she let me. She said she liked the way I looked at her like she belonged to me.

“He used to call me DN…” I never called her by her name—just princess, baby, or mia. And she smiled every time.

We were tangled in a motel bed one summer night, her lip gloss smeared, neck blooming with my fingerprints from earlier. I don’t even remember what started the fight. Just the fire in her eyes and the feeling in my fists.

And then I hit her. Open palm. One strike. Enough to startle her. Enough to silence the room.

She didn’t cry. She just looked at me like she already knew it would happen one day. And she touched her cheek, trembling, and whispered:

“It felt like a kiss.”

And that broke me. Because I believed her.

We made love after, if you could call it that—slow and desperate, my mouth full of apologies she never asked for, her hands gripping my back like she wanted to disappear into me.

“Ultraviolence.” That’s what we were. Destructive. Addicted. Worship and war.

She stayed. Every time.

And I kept calling it love because I didn’t know how to be anything else.

⸻