Page 134 of Three for a Girl

Chad stumbled towards him, slotting himself between Romeo’s legs. Romeo’s arms surrounded him and pulled him closer.

He pressed his nose to Romeo’s neck, breathing him in.

“It hurts knowing Marc did that to you. It hurts knowing you didn’t feel you could tell me.”

“I thought if you knew … it might ruin everything.”

“Never. You put a heart in my chest when I thought it was impossible for me to sustain it. You make me know what it is to be alive. You make me feel it.”

Chad shook his head, but Romeo held him firm.

“The monster makes you feel alive.”

“No, he makes me feel death, but you, you make me feel life, and it’s amazing, and precious and ridiculously fragile.” He laughed, “And sometimes I hate you for it.”

Chad looked up at him. “Why?”

Romeo laughed, releasing Chad. He pointed at one of his watering eyes, prodding the top of his cheek until a tear escaped.

“That,” he said, “that’s new. It’s fucking annoying, and when my chest compresses, that’s annoying, too, it’s like I’m suffocating. And I don’t feel it for myself, I feel it for you. If you’re upset, or hurting, it crushes me.”

“Being in love with me can’t be all that bad.”

“It’s not, when you’re happy, it makes me lighter, happier, too. It’s infectious.”

“It’s lovely that my boyfriend talks about me like I’m a disease.”

Romeo snorted, tracing Chad’s lips with his muddy thumb.

“When you smile or laugh, I feel all tickly in my stomach. Is that normal?”

Chad laughed. “How the hell would I know?”

“And when I look at you, I get this urge—it’s such a strong urge…”

The bruises on Chad’s throat throbbed. The urge, the need, the addiction he could never quench—

“The urge to kiss you and not stop.”

Chad’s heart skipped and he released a shaky sigh.

“I feel all these things I haven’t before and that’s because of you,” Romeo’s smile fell, “I don’tliveto satisfy the monster. It’s a side effect of me being alive—addictive, euphoric, problematic, but an afterthought. I live, I breathe, I keep existing because I want to spend as much time as I can loving you before I go to hell.”

“You know I’d join you there.”

“Yeah?”

“I am your Juliet after all. Together in life and death.”

“Speaking of death…” Romeo looked over his shoulder towards Carter.

Chad nodded, heaving himself out of the grave. Romeo followed him before approaching Carter. He was lying on his front, the hair at his nape twitched in the wind.

“Ready?” Romeo said.

“Wait.”

“For what?”

---