Page 48 of Bake the Town Red

A world without Dahlia isn’t one worth living in. Hell on earth, that’s what it would be. I should’ve remembered that. I always remember that.

Except every time I’m near her, I don’t remember any of it.

The guillotine over our heads. The way fate has it in for us. Her imminent death. Our pasts, the stuff nightmares were made of.

None of those register in her presence.

Grief, loss, and mayhem have been what the world had to offer us. Whenever Dahlia’s and my orbits collided, bad things happened.

First, her parents. Then her uncle. Ian. My grandma. Our entire apartment building.

She presses a metaphorical button inside me, and I forget everything.

In the privacy of my home, I remember.

Leaving her is a necessity.

Still…

I love her.

Forty-eight hours apart from her is an agony.

Especially since the memories from two nights ago are gone. Her scent disappeared from my fingers. The taste of her is no longer on my tongue.

I’ve been working, eating, shitting, and sleeping.

Dying on the inside.

Matter of fact, I haven’t been truly living for years.

Ever since I fell for her. It happened over the second year I’d acted as her ward.

On that damn Halloween night.

Dahlia was seventeen. I was twenty-nine. We were friends. She wanted me, I knew that. But I didn’t. Until that night when something clicked.

The night my love for her took a dark, dangerous turn.

I hadn’t left for work that Halloween morning. After last year, I didn’t dare leave her to herself. When I walked into her apartment late at night to find her on the floor. Screaming, crying. On all fours, in a puddle of her pee. She must have been there for hours.

There was no chance in hell I’d let that happen a second time around.

So, I’d taken the day off work. Showered and changed into jeans and a black Henley.

At exactly eight that morning, I knocked on her door. “Dahlia?”

No answer.

I had the keys to her apartment. That was a part of our deal. She gets to live there, and social services would never find out. But I had to keep the keys Ian had given me. I had to be able to protect her.

“Dahlia.”

Even though I had them, I wouldn’t barge in there. Unless I suspected something was off, I had no right to—

“I killed you.”Sob. Sniffle.“I killed you. How are you back here?”

One turn of the key and I was inside her apartment.

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