Page 60 of Property of Chaos

I point to the cat and then the door.Fuck off.I don’t need anything else in here that might disturb her.

The feline begins to purr.Goddamn animals.

I sweep the floor near where I stand with my socked foot and bump against whatever fell out of the notes. Attention fixed on the object of my desire as she sleeps, I slowly bend my knees and pat around with my left hand until I find it.A phone.Interesting. Even more curious that a simple swipe with my thumb unlocks the device to reveal the factory background. Even the apps are minimal.

This is not the phone of a person who regularly uses one.Huh.

My gaze falls to the page in my other hand, and even when I tilt it toward the cracked curtains, there’s not enough light to make out her words.

Good thing I have something that can help, then.I flick the phone’s torch function on and drag the light over the secrets of her soul, freezing when one particular detail stands out.

A name. A man’s name.

I look at my woman as she sleeps, at the tantalizing dip and curve of her silhouette. Did she do this on purpose, knowing Iwouldfind it? Does she want me to see the shit she keeps inside to rot? I tread lightly around her bed, moving to the same side she faces.Asleep. Precisely as I assumed. Her lips part a fraction, lashes light against her cheekbones, she slumbers with one hand tucked beneath her head, the other curled under her chin.

The cat rises, stepping delicately over her legs to reposition itself on the same side as me.

I shake my head at the fucker. Consider using the phone as a weapon on the asshole should it fuck this up for me. And decide that probably wouldn’t be the best way to get on Vanessa’s good side.Lucky break, fucker.

Instead, I shuffle back until my heels hit something soft—a pile of washing near her closet—and then lower myself to the floor, legs bent before me, elbows atop my knees. The pageshang in my left hand, the phone in my right to provide the light I need.

She speaks of an absence of love in her life. Of the grief of never knowing what a childhood full of joy and imagination could have created.

She muses over if she’s enough. If she matters to this world.

What can she give when all she can draw from is pain?

Who would that help?

I let my hands hang lax as I glance up at her peaceful form again. She doesn’t need a purpose to do good. She doesn’t need a ‘cause’.

Her pain was the pressure that created a diamond. The force that shaped the stunning masterpiece before me.

I’ve wracked my brain on my rides the last few days, pondering what the fuck it is about her that draws me in? Why am I the moth to her flame? Why, when I know she’ll only cause damage, do I seek her out all the same?

Because she reminds you that everyone holds inherent worth in this world.

I look at Vanessa, at the shit she’s been through, at the struggles she still faces, and I see a woman who deserves nothing but happiness. Who deserves a reward for her continued strength in the face of adversity.

Lesser men have crumbled. And yet she gets up day after day, a tiny spark of hope that there’s more out there for her, driving her forward.

Nothing that has happened to her is enough for me to deny her that happily ever after.

There is nothing she could do to diminish her right to be here. To be alive. To be happy.

She’s my reason why.Why, after all the shit I’ve done, I have no reason to deny myself the same.

Because every criticism I lay upon myself is one that I’d cut down the second it left her lips. Her pen.

Every negative thing I say about myself is a lie I’d debunk if she were to tout the same.

And yet, here I sit, aware on a deeply fucking subconscious level that I’m not good enough.

I’m not what she deserves.

I’m just what she needs.

TWENTY-THREE

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