Page 175 of Sinful Desires
“I carried you to some guest room,” he went on, quieter now. “You were half conscious, glitter smeared across your skin, soaked in sadness. I should’ve left it at that. But something inside me refused to let go. So, I took your necklace, to keep a piece of you close to me.”
His jaw tensed. His voice dropped.
“I didn’t just want to know you. I wanted to live under your skin. Protect you. From yourself. The way my parents tried to protect me. Only I wasn’t gentle with it. I was fucking consumed.”
He stared at me, eyes bloodshot, every inch of him trembling.
“I know it’s twisted. Call it stalking, call it obsession, call it whatever the hell you want.”
His hands dug into the ground, knuckles pale.
“I watched you. I followed you home. I memorized the way you walked, the way you disappeared into yourself when no one was looking. And yeah, maybe it was fucked, but it kept you alive?…?and me.”
His voice fell to a whisper.
“Protecting you was the only thing that made me feel human again.”
I should have screamed. Should have slapped him. Should have run until the sea dragged me under.
But I didn’t.
Because my heart only felt full when it was near his.
“When you left for France a year ago, was it to visit him?”
He nodded, and his lips shook.
“Yeah,” he breathed, voice splintering. “I promised my mother I’d come?…?and I did. But I only visited her. I couldn’t bring myself to see him.”
My eyes lifted to the sky, where a thousand grieving stars bled light through the darkness. They hovered above us, watching us in silence, close enough to mourn with us.
My voice slipped into the cold night.
“Why didn’t you save me from rehab, Théo?”
He let out a slow breath, his hand reaching for mine.
“Because deep down, you needed it. You needed to be cleansed of your addictions. They were tearing you apart, Scarlett. Eating you alive.”
His fingers closed around mine, trembling.
“I fucking hated that it was forced on you. That they stripped you of the choice. That it wasn’t me who took you there, who helped you get clean the right way.”
He paused, jaw clenched like the words hurt to let out.
“That’s why I worked in that place for a year. Because I couldn’t leave you, even then. I was right there, and you didn’t even know. My guilt kept my mouth shut.”
I knew too well what he meant. How guilt festered from the inside out and froze your life in place. It didn’t scream. It didn’t cut cleanly. It lingered. It poisoned.
It stole your sleep first. Then your voice. Then the pieces of you that used to feel like home.
That was what guilt did.
It turned your heartbeat into an echo. Your memories into blades. It made your own mind a battlefield, and you never got to win.
“You saved me, Scarlett. In a way no one ever has. In a way I never believed was possible. And I will carry that debt until my last breath.”
His voice shook, barely more than a whisper.
