Page 86 of The Space Between
Not now.
Not when she’s become the only thing tethering me to the shore.
After she comes moaningmy name, I follow close behind. She presses a kiss to my chest and falls asleep with her head on my chest.
I find myself staring out the window at the moonlight bleeding across the river. And I make a silent vow…
I’ll stop surviving.
And start living.
Blakelyn is the first person since I lost my world who ever made me believe I could.
I watch her sleep,realizing the fear hasn’t gone away.
It’s different now.
Because if I lose her, it won’t be the river that takes her.
It’ll beme.
And I’ll never survive losing the people I love twice.
CHAPTER 15
Blakelyn
His shirt is still drapedover the foot of my bed when I wake up.
Gruene’s.
It smells like river and sweat and something sharp I can’t name—something that clings to my skin and seeps under my ribs until it’s the only thing I feel.
Reaching for it before I’m fully awake, I pull it to my chest like a tether. Almost as though I don’t hold onto something that smells like him, I might forget last night was real. But I haven’t forgotten.
He grabbed my wrists like he couldn’t breathe.
He looked at me—really looked at me—like maybe I’m the first person he’s let in since his entire world drowned.
He kissed me before he took me like I was the only thing worth surviving for.
My thighs ache. My lips are raw. I don’t want to move but I’m alone in the bed, and the air beside me has already cooled.
Rolling to the side where he slept—where he laid his body over mine like a shield, like a confession—I stare at the ceiling.
The silence in the room isn’t empty. It’sheavy.Still warm from him. Still echoing with the way he whispered my name when he came.
I sit up slowly, pulling the sheet with me, and that’s when I see it.
A note. It’s folded clean in half and left on the windowsill where the light barely hits it.
He didn’t just leave. He left a note.
I press it open with my fingertips.
Headed to the shop.
Didn’t want to wake you.
