Page 98 of Grave Love
I study him. His posture strained. His white knuckles wrapped around the weapons and drugs.
“You know what I wanted,” I say, even though it hurts. “I wanted you to kill me while you fucked me. It didn’t matter how it happened; I just wanted to feelsomethingbefore I died.”
“The deal is off,” he growls. “I’ll fuck you. But I’m not killing you.”
My world slows, like water caught in a tide pool, seeping out through the cracks.
Blaze’s eyes stay fixated on me.
“I don’t give a fuck what we agreed on,” he says. “The rules have changed. And I choose you, and if it’s not the same for you, then you’re going to have to—”
“Choose me for what?”
“I chooseyou,Ren. Your life,” he growls under his breath. He steps closer and kneels down beside me, putting the weapons and drugs on the ground within my reach. He takes my hand and places it on his chest. Even through the shirt, his heart races, drumming against my fingers with panic. With fear. With promise too. “You feel that, Ren? Until that stops, you’re not going anywhere.” His eyes search mine. His voice softens. “I choose whatever fucked up life we have left.”
Our surroundings blur. My pulse matches his.
I take a breath, but it’s hard.
“You don’t mean that,” I whisper. “You deserve better than me.”
“I love you,” he says, his voice full of anger and pain, everything inside of him melting. His eyes water. He presses my hand tighter to his chest. “So if you want to die, then you’re going to have to kill me first. Because I’m not going to let you do this to yourself. Not while I’m alive.”
Not while I’m alive.
“Iget to kill you,” he murmurs, his voice shaking. “No one else. And I refuse. I fucking refuse with everything in my life. None of it is worth killing you. So if you leave this world, you’re going to have to kill me first.”
My eyes burn, the overwhelming emotions swirling inside of me. The powerlessness that’s always been there. The force that grew when my mother died. When my grandmother threw out my stuff, replacing it with hers. When I was forced to drop out of the doctorate program. The hopelessness. Like there was nothing I could do. Like I had no choice.
I take a deep breath, and Blaze clutches both of my hands, keeping them against his body. The ocean beats against the shoreline. A pack of tourists shout from a neighboring restaurant. The faint hum of a guitar drifts over to us.
Blaze’s eyes focus on me.Only me.
He sees so much more in me than my mother did when I was little. Than my grandmother does now. More than I see in myself. And for once, the potential of it all—the possibilities—they don’t seem so unnerving anymore. I’m not strong because Blaze gave me strength. I’m strong because that ability to choose has always been inside of me; I just didn’t see it before.
I look at the weapons on the ground. The loose rope. The powder scattered in the bag like snow. The metal of the knife shining with dull glimmers of the fading sun. The gun digging into the dirt.
I meet Blaze’s eyes, my spine tingling as his pupils wash over me. I’ve dreamed of dying with a killer’s cock inside of me for as long as I can remember, and maybe I’ll still meet that bittersweet end someday. Maybe each time Blaze and I have come together, he’s killed the hopelessness inside of me a little more. Put something new in place of that emptiness.
Maybe I’m grateful for that.
“Ren,” he begs. And it’s like he can’t say anything else or it’ll break him apart. I know what he’s truly asking.
What do I want?
My entire mind fills with the need to feel his arms around me. I do want to die in his arms. I want to feel his comfort as life leaves my body.
But I don’t want to die. Not yet. Not right now. Not for a long time.
“I want to live,” I say.
He cups my face in his hands, a tenderness in his touch that seems unreal, like he knows how fragile I am, that I still might break. And he kisses me. Kisses me like he doesn’t want to crush the petals of my lips. Kisses me like we mean something. Like our lives mean more than life, death, and existence. Likewematter.
“I want to live,” I say, through those murky tears. “I want to live.”
“I want you to live,” he says, gripping my face now like he’s afraid I’ll float away. Like he knows what might happen if I leave him now. “I want you to scream, Ren. I want you to cry for me. I want to make you scream and cry for the rest of our lives.”
Our lives.
