Take On Me, PART III
A love story about pretty scars and the violence of softness.
Unless you like starting the story from the end — here’s part 1 and part 2.
“I lived my days cutting my thighs with your football jersey number. Drinking battery acid to punish myself for liking vanilla ice cream. Screaming into microwaves because their hum made me hear her voice…”
She stopped.
Not yet. One step too far.
“How can you look at me like I’m worth something?” Her voice broke — completely. She pressed her forehead to his, shaking.
“I don’t know how to be loved like this.” She sobbed. “I don’t know how to take it without destroying it. I feel like I’m going to piss in your cereal tomorrow. Bite your tongue out for saying all these sweet things. ”
She gripped his arms — hard — knuckles white. He didn’t flinch. He just kept kissing her tears — licking them off like a sacrament.
“Do you really want to know?”
“I don’t, Jenny. I need to know.”
“I was too little to remember everything, but that one nightmare keeps coming back to me.”
A long silence. Then, barely audible:
“She used to say that I wasn’t hungry enough to deserve food. She used to lock me in the basement. Tape my little, trembling mouth. Bruise my thighs with her man’s belt. Said I’d only earn meals when I learned to disappear. So I did. Starved for six days, while she was partying with her boyfriends.”
Her fingers curled into his chest — not scratching, just holding on, as if she feared he would dissolve if she let go.
“I came out covered in my own feces and she smiled. Told me I was finally pure.” She swallowed. Twitched painfully.
“I became what she wanted. Naked. Filthy. Mad. Always angry. Always hungry. Until you…”
The earthquake inside — the foundation of her soul — cracked open after years of self-hatred.
“It’s okay, Jenny…”
His voice was soft. But to her it felt like a knife to her gut.
Not the blade hidden under a toilet seat. Not the rusted screwdriver in her boot.
To her, these simple, silly words spoken in his velvet-boy voice, hurt just the same.
“Then… When I came back once...” Long quiet. “I found her with the rubber band squeezing her arm. The needle and the spoon laying on the floor. She was wearing that red, tight dress of hers — wine stain on the front, dentures in a cup. Torn stockings. Ruined makeup. A cigarette butt between her fingers. She looked so happy… I put my fingers to her throat. Held. Searched for her breath. She was so cold and gone. Just another worn-out mannequin.” She exhaled — a shutter opening in darkness.
“Afterward, I laid on top of her for three days until the neighbours started knocking and the police came. Let the misery soak into my skin. Ate peanut butter from the jar with my fingers. Wiped my mouth on her dress. Pretended she was rocking me, while in reality I was furious. Not because she died happy, but because she left the table and I couldn’t punish her for it.”
Her nails dragged down his chest — light, searching.
“I was fucking nine back then. You get it, John? A fucking child.”
Silence. Heavy. Shattering.
“I spent the next nine years wandering between reformatories and foster families. And now look at me… Look at how great they managed to do their work, John…”
Then, softer, like a secret dragged over glass:
“Maybe it’s not on them. Maybe no one could help me. None could understand what happened to me. And then I… I saw you that evening. Bleeding on the football field after the game. Rain washing mud down your quad. And I thought… I thought you looked just like me. Hurt. Missing something you couldn’t name.”
She touched his cheek. “You know I started stalking you? Switchblade in my pocket. To rape you. Or make you watch me carve my stomach open for you.” A ghost of a smile.
“...and then one day I saw you too.” He finally stepped in.
“I felt I shouldn’t look, but nor could I look away. Because you were so true, so mutilated, so beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” She laughed — once. Sharp. A liquor bottle breaking on a church floor.
“You saw beauty in me standing there? In that ugly pub? One hand on a whisky bottle, the other hidden in my pocket, holding that switchblade. You must have known something was wrong with me. Didn’t you? For fuck’s sake, John! I looked like I was about to piss myself.” Her fingers pressed into his chest — over his heart.
“I started softening the moment I saw you. Inside-out. My womb twitching. My teeth loosening. I hadn’t slept in days. Just paced my haunted house screaming scripture backward, begging whatever demon possessed me to finish the job.”
She shifted — straddling him slowly.
“And you… you didn’t run. Didn’t call the cops. You looked at me. Like I wasn’t a trash. Like I wasn’t invisible.” Her voice dropped — raw, trembling.
“And that scared me more than God himself ever did.”
She leaned down until her lips brushed his ear.
“I took you home that night not to fuck you. Not to torture you. I took you home to kill us both. Planned to slit your throat mid-orgasm first. Burn the house down.” A tear fell — landed hot on his collarbone.
“...but you whispered my name like a lullaby when you came.” Her hips rocked forward — subtle, involuntary — needing friction, needing proof.
“And I froze. Your cum dripping down my thigh. Rain in my ears.” She pulled back just enough to stare into his eyes — wild, glistening, unmoored.
“You said, ‘Thank you.’ And I couldn’t guess what for. For fucking you? For not killing you?” Her breath hitched. “I realized then — I didn’t want you dead. I wanted you mine. Forever. Begging for my rot like I used to beg for bread.” She slid one hand behind his neck.
“So I started the game. Made rules. And then I… I didn’t know how to stop. Didn’t know how to be good. How not to want to make you suffer just to feel you’re mine.”
“We could try again.” He started kissing her while she guided him inside her. He looked at her from below as she rode him — slowly, tenderly.
“And you don’t have to always be gentle with me. I enjoyed the things you did to me. Not always. But sometimes…”
She arched — back bowing, head thrown back — as he sank deep inside her, his mouth sealing over her nipple.
Her hips rolled rhythmically — controlled not by dominance, but by the unbearable truth that this — mouths together, hearts syncing — was the only thing she’d ever needed.
She bucked once, hard, then stilled, shuddering.
“Mine…” She breathed, rocking down harder, drawing him deeper inside her inner fire, her clit grinding against his pelvis.
“Always mine. Even when I screamed you weren’t.” Her hand tightened in his hair, tugging just enough to sting.
“Don’t pull out. Don’t you fucking dare pull out, John.”
Her rhythm fractured — hips twitching, thighs tensing, breath coming in sharp, desperate bursts.
“Say it,” she demanded, voice cracking.
“Say you’ll never stop wanting me — even when I’m ugly. Even when we get old. Even when I’m swollen with your baby.” Her orgasm tore through her body. Back arched. Teeth snapped shut. Still, she stared. Waiting. Needing.
“Say it!”
“When you’re ugly? Look at you. Even clean. Crooked teeth. Unhealed wounds. Fresh and old. Scars everywhere. Disgusting, unlovable, beyond repair. But not to me. Never to me. My crime wasn’t failing to love you, but not being strong enough to stop you from destroying yourself.”
As his release surged — deep, endless — he answered, “I love you, Jenny. Through every hell. Always.”
She didn’t move when he came. Still seated on him. Resting on his softening manhood. Her breasts sagging heavy, slick with saliva and sweat.
She looked down at him — eyes red, raw, alive.
“I wore my ugliness like armor. Shark teeth to scare children. Grease in my hair so no one would dare touch me. Filth caked on my skin so everyone could see how unworthy I was.”
“I thought you wanted to hurt me, but you were punishing yourself. The day we broke up… I expected you to love me, but it was too soon. You couldn’t. You didn’t know how.”
A single tear rolled down her temple, slipping into her ear.
“You see me now, John? Not the witch. Not the feral cunt with a blade and a death wish. You see the little girl who brushed witch’s hair after she overdosed on heroin?”
She lowered herself slowly, collapsing against his chest, arms wrapping around his back.
“You didn’t leave, John. I made you do it. I thought if I made it bad enough — if I made you loathe me — you wouldn’t feel guilty when you disappeared. Wouldn’t come looking when I bled out with your name carved into my ribs.”
She turned her face into his neck — breath hot, uneven.
“I wanted you to hate me so you’d survive.”
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. Not angry. Not sadistic. Just out of control.
“She told me love was a knife. A dangerous waste of time. Said mercy was weakness. Said if I ever nursed anything besides hatred, I’d burn screaming, birthing worms. Bringing demons like myself to this world. She said I will get ugly. Hate my children. Eat their souls alive.”
Her hands slid down his chest — slow — coming to rest on her own belly. She pressed her palm harder — where his seed had slept, where her womb clenched. “What if I crush it? What if I lock it in the dark just to test their cries? What if I… if I become her?”
“I don’t know how to hold something so small and vulnerable without crushing it. I don’t know how to coo. To cherish. To sing. To say sweet things like you do. My child would wake up screaming and I’d choke it just to make the noise stop.”
She sobbed. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a rip — something tearing free from deep inside, older than memory, darker than guilt.
“You’re not a monster, Jenny. You’d be a great mother.”
She simply stared into his eyes — mouth slightly open, pupils swallowing the light — like he were trying to rewire her heart with bare words.
“You’re not her, Jenny. You’re you. And if we ever have a baby… I know you wouldn’t hurt it. Even if you tried. And when you break again... you won’t be alone.”
Silence.
Sacred.
Amen.
They took care of her crooked teeth first.
Then started building a place to live.
They moved from the hotel into a small, cozy apartment.
Bought new clothes. Started eating properly. Started working out together.
Jenny began behavioral therapy with a professor from John’s university. She expected him to run screaming like the others.
He didn’t. Not during the first session, or the second, or any one after.
She learned she wasn’t the only fucked-up person roaming this strange world. All of them deserving a second chance.
When the professor told her about the Jungian shadow and that “no tree can reach heaven unless its roots reach hell,” she broke down in his office, sobbing like a 9-year-old she still partially was.
John’s parents supported them even though every neuron in their brains told them they shouldn’t.
They didn’t count the red flags. What sense does it make if there are no green ones?
They felt like they should somehow force John to leave her. Lock Jenny in a mental facility. Get a court restraining order.
But for reasons they never fully understood, they didn’t.
John finished his degree.
He bathed Jenny every evening, humming lullabies.
They made love every time after.
Three years later she sat on the edge of the bathtub — clean — wrapped in a towel too soft for someone like her, staring at her reflection as if it belonged to someone else. The lights were bright. Too bright. No shadows to hide in.
Her teeth — straight now, capped, white — clicked against each other as she tested them with her tongue. Sounded like betrayal.
She laughed — quiet, disbelieving — and ran a hand through shampooed hair. Hair that didn’t stick together. That smelled like lavender, not mildew and burnt toast.
She pressed a palm to her belly. Round. Firm. Alive. Four months pregnant.
“That wise man from John’s school…” She said aloud, to no one, or perhaps to you, dear reader.
“Didn’t run.” A pause. “ He held my hand when I told him about her.
She exhaled — shaky — and traced the curve of her stomach.
“He didn’t flinch when I said I wanted to name the baby ‘Scab.’ Or ‘Ash.’ Or ‘Tiny Knife.’”
She stood slowly, the towel slipping slightly as she stepped toward the mirror.
“But when I said… ‘maybe Lilly’… just testing it… he smiled. Like it meant something.”
Her fingers pressed harder against her belly.
“I am still scared. I keep waiting until I start wanting to rip it out. Wait for the urge to slam my hips into the coffee table until it bleeds out. Wait for the voice that says ‘weakness breeds weakness, so poison the womb.’”
She turned sideways, studying herself.
“But it doesn’t come.”
Warm hands landed on her shoulders. He stood behind her in the mirror — clean-shaven, glowing with that unbearable, beautiful hope. She didn’t tense. Forgot to fear. Didn’t twist. Didn’t bite. Let him pull her back against his chest, let him kiss her shoulder, let him whisper.
“We’re gonna be okay, Jenny.”
She closed her eyes. And in the glass she saw them.
Barely healed. Hardly sane. But together.
And she believed it might be enough.
Every day repeatable like a prayer.
Every day steadier than the last.
However hard it might have seemed that this peaceful, ordered life could be somehow interesting, she never felt bored.
It was the seventh month of her pregnancy. They already knew it was going to be a girl. She murmured her name every time he touched her belly, not letting him argue with her choice.
Then came their anniversary. She forgot about it, but he wasn’t angry. He said he had planned something special.
She sat cross-legged on the bed — bare, round belly taut like a drum, skin stretched and shimmering with coconut oil he rubbed in every night to keep the stretch marks from cracking.
Lilly kicked. Hard. A foot, maybe a fist, punching upward toward her ribs.
“Lilly…” She murmured, palm pressed to the bulge.
“Settle, girl. Daddy’s planning something stupid. Probably candles. Maybe flowers. He won’t even tie me up those days.”
She smirked — but it faltered. Because lately… she liked when he didn’t tie her up. When he just held. When he kissed her hip instead of biting it. When he said “good girl” and meant it like a praise, not an erotic sarcasm.
This calm… it felt like before-the-storm. Like the universe was loading the gun.
Anxiety flickered.
“What if I ruin it?” She asked the empty room.
“What if I fuck it up? Scream at him for handing me the wrong spoon? What if I try to breastfeed the cat again or set the couch on fire smoking a cigarette while falling asleep?”
She shifted, uncomfortable — not in body, but in peace. Because she realized she hadn’t done any of that since he came back.
A knock at the door. Soft. Three taps. Daddy’s knock.
“You ready, Jenny?”
“No!” she barked instinctively. Then swallowed.
“Yes. Whatever.”
He invited her to their car. When she climbed in she smelled gasoline. Bottles with rags sat in the trunk.
“Candles and flowers, huh? Today you, Lilly and I have some fun. For the last time before the birth. We are going to seal this red door of yours shut. Paint them black.”
When they arrived at her old place, he lit a cigarette and handed it to her.
She stared at the door. Not the walls. Not the boarded windows. Not the skeletal remains of the swing set where she had broken her first doll’s neck.
She took the cigarette. Held it between her fingers like a talisman. Threw it on the ground a moment after and crushed it with her heel.
“Are you silly, John?”
She looked at the door again.
Red. Faded. Cracked.
Wind blew. Cold. Empty.
“I hated this house. Hated its smell. Its silence. The way the floorboards screamed like babies whenever I walked them.
She turned to him — eyes gleaming, then walked a few steps closer.
Slow. Pregnant. Powerful.
“This is where I became real,” she said.
“Where I wrote ‘MOMMY IS DEAD AND DADDY NEVER EXISTED’ on the wall in ketchup and my period blood.” A smile — twisted. Tender.
“You want me to seal it?”
He didn’t reply. Just smiled, when the next song started playing on the car radio.
Silly. Naive. Improbable.
“We’re talking away
I don’t know what I’m to say
I’ll say it anyway
Today is another day to find you”
She stood motionless — silhouetted by the glow of the lantern lights, the bassline thumping through the windows, vibrating in her ribs, pulsing through Lilly’s kicks.
She opened the trunk and rested the Molotov in her grip. Unlit. Her knuckles whitened.
Then — slowly — she lowered it. Finally dropped it to the ground.
Turned to him again. Face streaked with sweat, pregnancy glow mingling with the grime she had worn like war paint since birth.
She grabbed his hand and dragged it to her belly.
Lilly kicked. Right where his palm lay.
“She moves differently when she hears the music she likes.” she murmured.
“Like she knows.” She looked back at the house. At the red door. At the basement hatch.
She sucked in a shaky breath.
“I don’t want to burn the house down, John.”
Pause. Long. Heavy.
“Lilly deserves to see it. One day. Stand right here. Point at the red door and ask, ‘Did Mommy live there when she was sad?’ And I’ll say yes. And you’ll say, ‘But she got better.’ And she’ll believe it.”
A single tear rolled down her cheek. She leaned into him, heavy with child, heavier with truth.
“Could you play that song again? From the beginning.”
He threw away all the bottles from the trunk. A weak scent of gasoline hung in the air as they drove home. Holding hands. Smiling at each other, while “Take on Me” hummed through the speaker one time after another.
“So needless to say
I’m odds and ends
But I’ll be stumblin’ away
Slowly learnin’ that life is okay”
She leaned her head against the window, hand still locked in his, belly rising and falling with slow, steady breaths.
The city blurred outside — lights smearing like tears on glass.
Gasoline faded.
The past? Still there. But no longer on the driver’s seat.
And the song — the stupid, glittery, synth-popped miracle of it — kept playing.
“I want pancakes in the morning. Messy ones. With chocolate chips. I want you to cook for me while I’m nursing Lilly. I want to argue about the names of our children. I want to annoy you. To bicker. To stay.”
She pulled back — just enough to look him in the eye.
“Now drive me home, John. Before I start crying again and scare Lilly.”
Three months later Jenny gave birth to Lilly.
No shark teeth. No claws. No fur or scales. No tentacles, horns or hooves. No inherited madness dripping from her gums.
Just another helpless newborn.
Eyes dark blue as the summer night sky. Filled with hope and trust. Skin ruddy and sensitive, pale as milk. Black hair.
Not howling when the first breath burned her lungs. Just screaming. Humane. Normal.
Jenny felt like she might melt when they put Lilly on her chest. She guided Lilly’s tiny head toward her breast. Lilly calmed. Began sucking.
She shifted slightly, adjusting Lilly against her breast, guiding her gently as the baby drifted into sleep.
I'm a little nervous to go back and read Part I, tbh. Kinda have a feeling it's gonna wreck me. OK, deep breath, here I go.
Man… trauma is crazy…