Page 104 of My Lovely Tragedy
I suppose only time will reveal such travesties.
As time passes and daylight begins to rise behind the curtains, Brooklyn remains lost to it all. He doesn’t shy away from my searching gaze, so I spend this time memorizing every inch of his body. Every freckle. The hue of his eyelashes and eyebrows. The wiry depth of his unkempt beard. Making him appear even more wild and untamed. It suits him beautifully.
His face twitches, creating a crease just above his left brow, with what I hope is a lovely dream flickering behind those closed lids. His hands are thicker than mine, rough with callouses. Delicate and elegant wrists, bruised and married by the weight of my chains.
I trace the thin skin beneath, over the knobs of bone and around the dark shadows. The marks will fade with time.But these…My hands find rest against his forearm, bandaged and radiating warmth.
These will never fade.
He will wear my mark on his flesh until the end of this life—and maybe… hopefully into the next, where I will find him again.
My darlingcorvusand I exist in every possible universe—of that, I have no doubt. And I shall look forward to it. Focus on what comes next while carrying the beautiful weight of how we became. Not with regret but with a depth of loyalty so vast, it will lift even the blackest souls from the deepest pits of damnation.
My lips skim across his forehead, catching hairs. I wrap them around my finger, just holding on, and I breathe him in: sweat and musk, sex and sleep.Burnt cinnamon.
A creak reverberates through my skull as my molars lock and grind together, hand clamping tighter on instinct, but at Brooklyn’s hitch of breath, I release him with numb fingers and pull away, removing my body from his and standing on tingling feet.
Pins and needles wreak havoc in my extremities, and though the sensation is strong enough to bring me to my knees, I fight my way through it, staring down at my dark angel sleeping below.
Ethereal and innocent. Pained and stained by my very own hands.
Bile shoots up my throat, and I jerk away in self-loathing. The sun lights a path to my loft as I climb the ladder to retrieve my laptop. The words are churning, vile and potent. Forming their own version of desiccation.
The ending is in sight, and I have never hated the idea of two words before.The end.How implausible.
When my feet land on the upper floor, albeit unsteady, I plop down on my bed, drained and filled with a weariness I know has nothing to do with lack of sleep.
Every bone of my skeleton aches with it. Churning in my blood and turning it black. A poison coursing through me. Killing my organs, my sight. My mind.
I fall back and roll to my side to bury my face in the duvet. It smells of laundry soap andme.But there’s not enough of Brooklyn, andthat isn’t right.I lurch up with a grimace, filled with indignation, as I swipe my laptop off my desk and descend the ladder.
I used to love my loft.This cabin.It was my sanctuary. My peace.
Now, it’s filled with every part of mycorvus,and it will never be as it was.
But this is better.This is what I wanted.
I feel it a split second after it’s already happened. Like a movie, playing in slow motion when a bullet surges from a chamber, dead set on its mark. You can see its destination moments before it happens, and you can scream and cry and wish with everything in you for it to change course—but it’s a bullet, and bullets don’t curve.
Only in this case, the bullet is my arm, tingling with numbness, and not quite as deadly.
It gives out on me, halfway down. The fall is quick and rather easy, all things considered, even as time ticks, one beat of my heavy heart at a time.
My back makes impact first, then my head as it bounces off the hardwood floor. The crack is loud inside my head, a shocking sensation that stuns me momentarily as spots blot their way behind my lids, colorful and dull simultaneously.
It’s then that I realize I’m not breathing. Lungs screaming, pulling in with no return. I gasp, then cough, rolling onto my side as pain lances and contorts my body. My laptop, still secured in my left arm,thunksagainst the floor. I push it aside and curl into myself, zeroing in on the sharpest point of pain and wallowing in it.
It’s a while before the spots fade and sensation—other than a tingling numbness—creeps back in. It’s a slow and painful increase, but it has enough bite to drag me to my feet. I make my way to my chair in a daze and drop into it, letting my head fall against the back.
Brooklyn’s sleeping peacefully, buried beneath his blankets, as he always is. He is curled up and into himself, knees against his chest and hands tucked beneath his left cheek. Cracked lips parted slightly to allow intake of breath because he gets congested in his sleep.
My self-deprecating anger fizzles out in an instant, replaced with excruciating awe. Just knowing that mere months ago, he was so full of venom and anger, of malice and pain. And now…
My beautiful angel is sleeping peacefully, sated and content. Still just as full of life, but now with the ability to release, tolet go.He’s allowed to fill himself with more than what he has buried.
He can feel happiness now. And elation.Freedom within the confines I have constructed.
There is an independence in submitting and accepting. And Brooklyn found that with me.Begged me to keep it.
