“I always wondered what was worse, the physical or mental abuse. The truth is scars hurt no matter where they come from. It all depends on how we choose to heal.”
“I choose to heal with you.” My voice is gruff but I continue. “I choose to heal because of you. Because you, Alice Hall have made all the suffering in my life worth it. And I would take every beating again if it meant that one night I would meet you again.”
Her hands frame my face and I lean into her touch. She stares deeply in my eyes, conveying everything she can’t say. “Both of us born in tragedy yet found happiness with each other at such a young age. Maybe we knew then that we were destined to be.”
“We are more than destined. You are my very first wish upon the stars that came true,” I confess to her.
She gasps. “I was?”
“All I ever wanted was someone good. Someone filled with light to cast upon my dark soul. And then you arrived just seconds later. You reminded me of an angel. There was an innocence about you I wanted to protect. A light inside you that I felt as soon as you touched my hand. I wished every night for you and in what was my darkest hour you came shinning like a beacon.”
Her eyes fill with tears as she begins to kiss every scar of mine that she can reach.
And just like the very first moment that I took her hand in mine I can feel it, I feel her light lighting up every dark corner. Each of her kisses making me feel alive.
When she’s done she presses one final kiss to my lips. I can taste the salt from her tears. My thumb wipes away the last of them from her cheeks. “Don’t cry, angel. We have each other now.”
“I know,” she sniffles. “I just want you to know if I had to live with it all over again, the pain and suffering, I would if that meant I would be with you in the end.”
My arms wrap around her tightly as I pull her close to my chest. Her arms wound around my neck as her legs wrap around my waist. “I promise you no more pain and suffering, Alice. You fucking have me. You fucking have all of me.”
“And you have all of me,” she promises me back. Slipping her arm away from my body she then sticks out her pinky. With a small smile on her face she says, “A new promise, Reed Carter.”
A smile of my own plays on my lips. “What is that Alice Hall?”
“We promise each other a long and happy life as long as we are together.”
I interlock her pinky with mine. “That’s the easiest promise I’ve made yet,” I tell her.
She smiles brilliantly up at me. “Then that means you’ll have no problem keeping it.”
“As long as I can keep you, too.”
“Forever.”
As I take her back in my arms I dare anyone to tear us apart. She is my life and if anything were to happen to her . . .
If anything were to happen to her I wouldn’t know what I would do. I don’t know how I will survive.
Nothing can happen to her.
I’ll fight for the both of us but when it comes down to it, if it comes to the point where my life is decided then I’ll take my last breath fighting for her.
“Forever,” I vow to her even if my forever is a sacrifice to secure hers.
Alice
My body is sore in the most delicious way. With each step that I take I’m reminded of how he felt inside me. There is no doubt that I will feel him for days just like he promised. My skin flushes as I remember all the things he did to me. All the dirty words that he said. WhatIdid to him.
The thought of it alone has my body craving for him once again. But this time I know that I can’t act on my desires. My body wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Even with the slight discomfort I can’t bring myself to regret taking him again when I knew it was too soon.
The pleasure he gave me was indescribable. I never thought that I would be able to experience that. Not after the trauma I’ve faced. Not after everything that I’ve been through. Yet it was possible. It was possible to feel desired and have desire in return. It was possible to feel pleasure happening in every nerve ending in my body.
It was only possible because of him.
Because Reed didn’t take my body and abuse it.