Maybe if you were normal you wouldn’t be like this.

Maybe if someone just hugged you without wanting anything in return, without raising their hands for anything but a high-five, maybe if so many things from your past hadn’t happened—you wouldn’t find yourself on your knees for a man who didn’t give a shit.

But maybe that was the best part.

He didn’t see you as anything more than a nuisance, a toy, a pension plan for his boredom—but coming from him, that felt like a crown. He knew you. Saw you. Smelled you. When he was irritated, he didn’t hide it. He’d let it spill out of him, teeth and claws bared, and you swore there was warmth in the sting. Or maybe that was just the blood trickling from your nose when you sat too close, too quiet,

And even as you kmeeled, crumpled to the ground, watching him walk away.

—you smiled.

If you were being honest with yourself, you weren’t even sure if this was anything close to love—not for you at least. It was more like hunger. A desperate thirst to be acknowledged. To matter to someone. To him.

Even if he made you worse. Even if he left you crawling, bleeding, thinking yourself in circles until you couldn’t remember which thoughts were yours and which were his.

Because he cared. He had to. Why else keep you around—keep you in this house? Why else let you trail after him like a shadow sometimes, why else would he glance at you with those sharp, disgusted eyes?

That had to mean something. Right?

You tried to believe it. Over and over. Even when his laughter cut through you like a sawblade, even when his words sliced deeper than any knife, you clung to them. You called it affection when he shoved you down. You called it attention when he barked at you to shut up. Just twisted all his cruelty into proof—proof that he hadn’t forgotten you, proof that he saw you when no one else ever did.

And the spiral just kept winding tighter.

He didn’t need to lift a finger to ruin you. He just had to be there. A presence. A voice in your ear reminding you that you were his, reminding you that you had no one else. And you agreed. You nodded. You smiled through the ache in your skull.

Because without him—what were you?

Nothing.

And being nothing was worse than bleeding for him

Even now. As hee loomed over you, knuckles still warm from the strike, a shadow blotting out every thought except him. Your head rang, your breath hitched, but your lips still twitched with that broken little smile.

The one appreciating his care..

“Look at you. Grinning like a dog. Fuckin' pathetic.” He spat tone flat, almost bored—like your pain was nothing more than background noise.