Page 79 of His Juliet

She stopped fighting me but stayed silent.

“Please tell me you believe me, Juliet.”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense for you to actually be into me.” Before I could argue with her, she forged ahead. “You look likethat, and I’m just an ugly blob. You have some sort of high-powered job, and I work in a bookstore and live in a shitty apartment. Our lives don’t fit, Romeo. I don’t even know your real fucking name!” She screamed that last part while tears streamed down her face, mixing with the water.

I grabbed her shoulders and gave her a shake. “What the actual fuck? You. Are.Everything. Gorgeous and funny and brilliant.” I brushed wet strands of hair out of her face. “I never feel as at peace or happy as I do when I’m around you. And my real name is Romeo. I never lied to you about that.”

“You lied about other things.”

“I know. I’m so sorry. I’ll explain better once we get you all cleaned up. Promise.”

I shifted us so the water hit the tops of her thighs, cleaning off the rest of the blood. I regularly washed much more blood off my own body, but seeing Juliet marked with red? It shook me to my core.

Once the water was running clear, I hugged her back to my chest. “I can’t stand to see you hurting, can’t imagine a world without you. Please, sweetheart, don’t do this again. I’ll do anything to stop you from hurting like this.”

It wasn’t my right to ask this of her, but I meant it when I said I would do anything for her.

She shook her head, her face still pressed to my chest. “I can’t.”

My fingers dug into her skin. “Yes, you can. I know?—”

“I can’t stop,” she screamed, cutting me off. “I’ve tried, but Ican’t. I’m broken and I destroy everything around me. You were right to stay away.”

She thrashed against my hold, but I pinned her against the shower wall. “I’m not fucking leaving! Fuck, Juliet! You can’t do this. You can’t do this.” I couldn’t remember the last time I cried, but now my tears mixed with the water. “If you need to get the pain out, you take it out on me.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t.” She was sobbing now.

My eyes caught on yet another razor blade in the corner of the shower niche and saw red. I held it up to my own skin and she flinched. “No. Fucking. More. You need to cut, you cut me.”

She shook her head, and I pressed the razor into her hand.

“Do it.”

“No, I can’t!”

“Do it, Juliet! I can take it!” My voice was probably loud enough to reach all the apartments in this shit building, but I didn’t care. Nothing could compare to thinking I’d lost her forever.

I moved her hand so the razor blade was pressed against my chest, the exact same spot she’d drawn the tattoo on that first night. “Cut me. Markme.”

She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Thinking about a world without you hurts me!” I gripped the back of her neck and pulled her in for a crushing kiss, pouring all my pain and fear into it. My hand went to hers and I guided it to my skin, forcing her to slice the razor blade across my chest. I barely felt the sting as the blood dripped down.

She let out a whimper and dropped the blade. She ran her finger through the blood, her lower lip trembling. “You don’t deserve to hurt.”

What was left of my mangled heart cracked and shattered.

“I don’t know who told you thatyoudeserve to hurt, but they were wrong. You deserve everything good.Everything. And I’m going to make sure you have it.”

I hugged her tight, my hands pressed against her back. At first, Juliet stood with her arms at her side, but then, ever so slowly, her arms wrapped around my waist. We clung tightly to each other as if trying to pull the other into our own body. My entire world shrank down to her, my Juliet, and it didn’t matter that we were almost naked, or that the water was running cold, or that we were in this shitty bathroom. All that mattered was that she was in my arms and I wouldn’t let her go.

When she started shivering, I turned the water off and wrapped a threadbare towel over her. “I need to take a better look at those,” I murmured, kissing the top of her head. She curled in on herself. I lifted her chin and waited for her to meet my gaze.

“I can handle it myself,” she whispered.

A lump rose in my throat, and I shook my head. “No, I’ll do it.” I needed to take care of her this way to reassure myself that she was still here. I pulled my clothes on, uncaring that I was still dripping wet, and guided her to the loveseat.

“I’m going to bleed on it,” she said.

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