Page 36 of Forever We Fall

Everything inside me demands that I run to him, pull him into my arms, and hold him until the new wounds become scars, until the pain dwindles, until his uncle becomes worm food. Instead, I banish the screams rapping on my lungs, begging for freedom. I straighten my spine and walk to the hand with the blade.

When he doesn’t even blink at my presence, I know I have to get his attention. Fast. And keep it. Forever.

I crouch low, grab the cold and bloody metal, and then snatch it away.

With my free hand, I wrench down my singlet and lift the edge of the blade to my belly.

“If you hurt yourself, I hurt myself.” I plunge the sharp point into my skin.

The sting doesn’t come.

The shocking heat and incredible force of Arlo’s hand on my forearm does.

He immobilizes my intent without a word. His gaze meets mine. The soul-burning sorrow in his eyes breaks me in two. The boy I was before I met Arlo Judge and the man I am now, wholly devoted to helping mend his shattered pieces, no matter what it costs me.

“Don’t please.” He pulls my hand away from my body.

I release the blade. It clinks onto the tile, making a sound disproportionate to its impact on my life. People should hear it for kilometers. Hell, countries away should clutch their hearts and beg to know what that sound was.

It’s the sound of me giving my heart and my life over to Arlo Judge.

As if he heard it as profoundly as I did, he lets go of my arm. His warm fingers slip around my nape, and he pulls forward.

I’m so caught off guard that my feet slip from beneath me. My knees catch me before I crash into him, but he tugs harder.

“Hold me?” There are tears in his words.

I let myself fall then, completely and irrevocably. Physically and emotionally.

My cheek meets the soggy tears on Arlo’s cheek and the impeccable warmth. The unwavering set of his jaw, even in the midst of a total breakdown. My chest meets the width of his. Our hearts pound against each other’s.

His skin. Oh God, his skin is battle born, warm, and more perfect than I could have ever imagined.

“Always,” I whisper the words and wrap my arms around Arlo.

Arlo!

My mind and body rejoice in the contact.

I shouldn’t. He’s hurting in every way. I shouldn’t find any joy in this, but the deviant that I am, I do.

He buries his face in my neck and locks his arms around me as though I might disappear with a shift of the wind.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Somehow, I manage to heft his bulk off the floor, maneuver myself onto it, and gather him onto my lap. I lean against the wall and cradle him to me.

He stays there, burrowed against my chest, his arms around me, his face in my neck, my arms around him for minutes that pile into the better part of an hour.

My greedy hands long to roam his skin, to soothe his tormented flesh and offer comfort.

I don’t.

My tongue yearns to tell him that I love him in whatever manner and capacity he can accept, no matter what that may be.

I don’t.

There’s no chance I’ll push his boundaries, potentially triggering him more than something already did, and end this connection.

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