Page 95 of Unbroken

“But that feeling finally passed. I could breathe without feeling like the air was killing me, and when I saw you all again—when I sawyouagain, it felt like time had started back up.”

Blakely wiped her eyes and lifted her shirt off over her head. Her black hair fluttered back down around her as she tossed the shirt aside.

“And I knew that’s exactly what would happen, too.” There was a hint of a smile on her lips, and I held my breath. “Because you already saved my life once.” Her words rocked me, and I sat back a little. But she didn’t let my reaction deter her.

“When I was at my lowest, I was sitting in my childhood bedroom surrounded by all the things my parents had packed up from my apartment here and had shipped back there because they didn’t know what else to do with it. I’d been there for about two weeks, and I was…spiraling. I couldn’t even tell you what I was thinking now, but it wasn’t good. I know that I couldn’t see the future. There was no future in my mind because I refused to live like that anymore. There wasn’t a light at the end of the tunnel, and I ended up getting in my car and driving. Only I wasn’t driving with a destination in mind; I was driving with a purpose.”

Like she was lost in the memory, her eyes grew distant and unfocused as she looked past my shoulder. I pressed further onto the bed, and the brush of the covers broke her out of the trance. She shook her head.

“It was warm, so I rolled down all the windows and put my foot on the gas. I was driving my mom’s old Kia, though, so it wouldn’t go as fast as I wanted it to. As fast as I needed it to. I didn’t really have a plan in mind, but that didn’t matter. Because I didn’t plan on coming back from that drive.”

She said the last sentence so quietly that it took a moment for the words to reach my ears, but when they did, I didn’t think I’d ever felt heartbreak like that. Like my heart had been shredded and burned. Like not even the charred remains were left. Like nothing else was real.

My beautiful Blakely. No, not her. She’d been through so much and had come out the other side. I’d glimpsed the darkness that still lingered in her mind, but knowing she’d contemplated that, I wanted to hold her and never let her go. I wanted to spend every waking second of every day reminding her that life could be better. That the darkness didn’t have to win.

“But obviously, that didn’t happen,” she said, reaching out and brushing her fingers over my hand. I clung to those two fingers like they were my lifeline. “The wind whipped around the car, and there was a large gust as I passed an eighteen-wheeler. And that large gust tore open the bag I’d been carrying around. I’d forgotten that I’d thrown one of my old journals in there. It was a therapy technique I’d read about on the internet. Journaling to work through trauma and PTSD, and when I found that journal with a few random pages of thoughts from college, I decided why not? It hadn’t really been working, but I hadn’t gotten rid of the journal yet.”

I climbed further onto the bed, and I was relieved when she didn’t try to stop me. I just needed her a little closer.

“Anyway, the wind picked up, blew my bag open, blew the journal open, and pages started flying. It was filled with a ton of loose paper. Most of it was useless stuff, and knowing what I was about to do, I didn’t even try to stop it from happening. Except one piece of paper plastered itself to my windshield, directly in my line of sight. And it changed everything.”

Blakely abruptly stopped talking and removed her hand from mine. She straightened and reached behind her to unfasten her bra. She carefully slid the straps down her arms and watched me.

She threw the bra near her shirt and took a shaky, uneven breath. Then she turned around until she was facing the back wall. With her hair draped down her back, I was grasping at anything to try to connect the dots until she collected the mass of dark waves and pulled it to one side.

She swung it over her shoulder, and what I saw knocked the breath from my lungs.

Down her spine was the sword I’d drawn for her in perfect detail. I blinked several times before I trusted my eyes and believed what I was seeing.

The hilt was poised between her shoulder blades, the pommel starting at just the base of her neck. It was thin and graceful, vines twisting around the grip and the guard and growing out from the base of the blade.

The blade that followed the column of her spine was simple, yet the subtle, mended cracks I’d added were still there.

I sat there for a long time, just taking in the whole picture and assessing every detail in the faint light filtering into the room. Blakely sat perfectly still while I memorized the art on her skin.

Slowly, I moved closer until I was only inches away. She tensed slightly when my fingers brushed against the spot between her shoulders, but she didn’t remain that way. She relaxed and watched me from over her shoulder.

Like it was sharp enough to cut me, I carefully dragged my fingers down the blade. I appreciated the shading and the detail, but occasionally, beneath the tattoo, I felt a blemish in her skin. In the little light that filtered into the room, it was hard to determine what they were, but I quickly realized by shape and length and feel that they were small, raised scars that also traveled the length of her spine.

There was no rhyme or reason for their location, and they had been healed for some time, but I knew they hadn’t been there when she left.

“They’re from a brick wall,” she said quietly, knowing exactly what I was seeing.

Then she tossed her hair back over her shoulder and spun to face me. She pressed up onto her knees and flattened her palms against my chest.

“You saved my life, Devon. And you didn’t even know it.”

I had no words. What was I supposed to say? That I was glad I had unintentionally saved her life? That my sketch from ten years ago had done it? That didn’t feel right. None of the few words I could think of felt right or big enough.

So, instead, I kissed her like it was both the first and last time I would, hoping like hell that I would never know what the latter felt like.

I poured everything into that kiss, and the way she clung to me, I knew she felt it, too.

Her naked chest pressed against mine, and I wrapped my arms around her. But when my hand brushed down her spine, my fingers lingered over the tattoo I now knew was there.

A possessive need wound through me. Shifting closer, I gripped under her ass and picked her up off the bed. I guided her back until her head hit the pillows, and I was poised over her. My hands slipped down her sides, and I tugged off her shorts, dropping them off the side of the bed.

I looked back down at the woman beneath me and was stunned by her smile. Completely unfettered and pure, shebrushed her hands into my hair and licked at her lower lip. Her legs dropped open, and suddenly I was the one who was overdressed.

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