Page 16 of Possession

Touch me.

She deceived you.

You’re weak.

The room was a fucking vacuum as the roar in my head raged. My heart pounded, ripped, and almost tore through my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Her eyes. Those goddamn eyes brimmed with fear when I raised my voice, but her hands felt like fire and, having her skin on mine again, it was agony and glory all at once.

“I—I’m sorry.” Her voice shook.

My fury poured down my spine in crashing waves. Paige tried to shrink down inside herself, and the silence grew like an infection, the decayed air smelled like rust between us.

“I’m sorry,” Paige spoke again, her tone soft, mournful… ethereal.

My shoulders fell and the tight muscles in my jaw relaxed. The fury transformed into murky gray hues of sorrow. My war between hate and love, certainty, and the consequence of her, drummed deeply in my chest. My hand twitched. Her skin was just a breath away, and I had longed to remember the texture. I swore under my breath and turned. I had to put some distance between us before I did something I’d regret. I switched off the stereo, grabbed my phone, and turned to face the executioner. From this distance I could pretend she was just another delusion, another wraith I’d summoned to taunt and tease me. My feet moved toward her, involuntarily, my body seeking out its other half, but it took everything I had left inside of my shell of a soul to stop myself from moving closer to her. If I got too close I would surely burn.

“Declan, I don’t know what to say.”

It was the rejection I’d expected and the pain of it sent me reeling. I hadn’t even realized I’d allowed any hope to seep through.

“There’s nothing you can say, Paige.” The truth sliced me open and the pain of it woke me from my dream. Paige Simon was a fucking ghost. Everything good about us died the day our baby did.

The waiting room was sterile white. Magazines sat on the tables scattered throughout the room, with moms and babies on their covers as a giant ‘fuck you’ to those who were here to end life instead of nurture it. This was the last place I wanted to be. Paige’s cold hand was in mine, her face was stark as she stared forward. She wouldn’t, couldn’t look at me. I should’ve begged her not to do this, took her to the courthouse and married her the day she told me she was pregnant. She’d said she was only seven weeks along, and I’d told her maybe if we gave it time she’d change her mind. But she’d been petrified. Terrified of the future I’d offered her. She’d told me her parents would have never allowed it, and that if we kept the baby they’d send her away, and losing her… it wasn’t a possibility I wanted to entertain. What we were about to do, this choice, I’d been raised to believe it was the worst kind of sin, and if my parents ever found out, Liam… Kieran… I’d beg for Hell. But, part of me understood, we were too young, and when I married Paige I wanted it to be because she wanted to, not because we had to.

She’ll never marry you.

I closed my eyes. The stress of the past week had slowly dismantled my progress. Since I’d been with Paige the past four years, my meds, therapy, it all really worked. She was a constant in my life, and even though my doctor said it was my medication compliance, it was Paige who kept the voices at bay entirely.

“Are you okay?” she asked and I opened my eyes.

I shook my head. “No.”

“Me either.” Her eyes were void of the color I loved.

“We could leave. We don’t—”

“Paige Simon,” a nurse wearing light blue scrubs called her name.

Our hands were linked as we stood, and I was just about to follow her when she shook her head. “I’ll have them come get you when I’m in recovery.”

“I want to be there for you.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Please, I can’t… I won’t… I need to do this on my own.”

My eyes blurred as she dropped my hand. The separation, I felt it in my gut, the hollow emptiness made me sick as I thought about how she would soon feel that emptiness too, if she wasn’t already. The nurse glared at us. We were holding up her day. Maybe she wanted to go to lunch, maybe she was judging us, or maybe she was just tired of waiting on kids who were making decisions too big to bear.

“I love you,” she whispered and leaned up on her toes to kiss me on the cheek. The desolation in my stomach grew.

“I love you, Paige.”

I hadn’t realized back then that “I love you” really meant goodbye. The sickly sweet, brown liquor coated my throat and tongue as I sat on my bedroom floor and swallowed deeply from the bottle. I’d stolen some of my brother’s whiskey and locked myself in my room. I’d lost time again, intoxicated and hazed from the day and the Jack. How long had I been home? This was foolish, immature, and reckless, but I was done denying myself a moment to fade… crash, and I wanted to be devoured by the pain. TheChristmas Kisswas hanging on my wall. I’d framed and placed it next to the painting I’d done of Paige’s eyes a few years back. Her eyes the day of the procedure had been especially void of color, and I wanted to paint them as a memorial.

I kept my gaze trained on theChristmas Kissas I stood and let the resentment spark the fuel of the alcohol. The music blared angrily from the speakers of my computer and the sound of it was the only thing muting the voices. They were mocking me, they rejoiced in my faults and, the more I drained the bottle, the worse they became. Disgust, hatred for myself, for her, for every-fucking-thing fisted my hand around the neck of the bottle. I wanted to break it, shatter it, and when it didn’t fold beneath my grip, I threw it. The bottle smashed against the wall, against the painting of Paige’s eyes. The liquid trickled down creating an illusion of tears and my eyes stung with my own.

“Declan!”

I slammed my eyes shut willing the voice away.

“Declan, open the door!”

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