Page 103 of This Life and All the Rest
I smirk, then, and raise an eyebrow.
“I’m an addict,Astraea. I don’t know how to do anything small. Ifeelintensely. Iwantintensely. Icraveintensely. For me, if it’s not a healthy obsession, it’s not love.”
There’s that word again.Love.
It heats my blood and sparks anxious swirls in my stomach. I wait for her to acknowledge it, but she doesn’t, and I feel the need to break the tension.
“Or, at least, that’s what my therapist tells me.”
She blinks at me, speechless, then furrows her brow as her eyes scan my face. If I were a painting, she’d be rolling her paintbrush over her lip right now. She’s studying me. Trying to understand me. She’s unsettled, and so am I.
I reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, then drag my knuckles over her jaw.
“My turn,” I say, and she raises her eyebrow in question. “You’ve gotten a lot out of me. I want to know something, now.”
She swallows hard and blinks a few times.
“Okay.”
Her response is tight and forced, but I move forward. This is too important to ignore.
Slowly, I reach for the bedsheet draped over her legs and drag it off her, exposing her naked thighs. She stops breathing and pulls her lower lip between her teeth, biting hard.
With one hand, I reach up and free her lip, rubbing gently over the bite mark she left. With the other, I rest my palm on her thigh, right over the small, raised scars. She shuts her eyes and sucks in a harsh breath. My heart fucking aches for her.
I noticed them briefly in my bedroom the other night, but it didn’t register right away. Not until tonight, in slightly better lighting, when she let me have her again.
“What are these,Astraea?”
She shakes her head slightly but opens her mouth to speak. Then she closes it again.
I slide my hand to her neck, running my thumb over her pulse point, and she leans into me. I wait. A lifetime stretches in the silence.
Finally, she opens her eyes and locks her gaze with mine. She shrugs, giving me a tiny, sad smile.
“They were a release when I thought I had nothing else,” she whispers, and my chest cracks wide open.
I want to rage. I want to break things. I want to pull her into my arms and never let her go. To fix everything I broke. To undo every mistake I’ve made.
She’s experienced so much pain, and I worry I’ve only scratched the surface of the damage. I worry I’m the cause of it.
I pull her to me and press our foreheads together.
“Never again,” I force out on a rough breath. “I promise. I swear it. Never again.”
When I wake,it’s late morning.
I can tell from the way the sun is shining through the window, even before opening my eyes. Blindly, I reach for Lennon, needing to pull her back to me.
I stretch my arm out and grasp only air.
My hearts stops, and I fist the sheet. I keep my eyes closed and listen for any sign of movement in the apartment. Music from the studio, or dishes in the kitchen.
Silence.
I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling.
I breathe in once, grit my teeth, then turn to the empty side of the bed. I sit up slowly and work through my thoughts, and before I completely lose my shit, assuming the worst, a piece of paper on the nightstand catches my eye.
