Page 81 of Beauty and Kaos

I’ve lost Zaden. I don’t know how to explain any of this to Raven, and doing so would ruin everything for her. She has a Mom. She doesn’t need to know that her Mom is dead. Her Dad was murdered. That she was abandoned. An orphan, like me. Alone. All this pain circles me, falls on me, and it can end with me.

I close my eyes, and reach my hands out to my sides to feel the strength of the wind push back against me. Thundercrackles through the air, rumbling the concrete beneath my boots. Further down the bridge, I hear the screech of tires. For a moment, I think I even hear my name.

Then I fall.

I’m weightless, like a bird in flight. Images flash through my mind. Moments growing up with Paige, the years before we lost our parents. The way Mom would hold me close as she read us a story at night. My Dad’s laugh. How they would take us out to the protected part of the beach, and set us on a surfboard to practice on the small waves that roll in slow, and gently lap at the shore. This is the only love I’ve ever known, until I met him.

Zaden appears in my mind, his hands warm on my skin, his ice-blue eyes locked on mine. He makes me want to believe in a life beyond survival. Beyond loss and grief and servitude and mind-numbing rage. I want to let him fix me. I want to let him love me… like I love him. But this has never been about what I want. I’m just a passenger in my own life. A stagehand preparing the main event, working furiously behind the scenes until the curtain falls.

I plunge feet first into the ocean, the impact smashing against my skin like a baseball bat and stealing my breath away. I sink into the shadowy depths of the sea, further and further down into the deep dark abyss beneath the surface. My lungs burn for air, and I reach for her, waiting for her.

A hand grabs me in the dark, strong and unyielding, wrapping around my waist. I’m rising with the bubbles that trickle from me, the pressure lessening, the darkness fading into light until suddenly my head breaks the surface. I gasp for air like its the first breath I’ve ever taken on this Earth.

My eyes blink open, my hands gripping the solid arm stillbraced around my waist. I turn, and my eyes collide with Zaden’s. Fear and worry echo deep in his beautiful blue eyes as he places his hands on either side of my face.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“Where did you come from?” I ask between ragged breaths.

“I jumped.”

I glance back up at the bridge towering above us. “You…” I shut my eyes tight as the tears begin to burn. “Fuck, Zaden.”

“Look at me,” he demands, and I shake my head. “I just leaped off a fucking bridge for you. Look at me.”

I open my eyes, and lick the salt from my trembling lips.

“I shouldn’t have let you go. None of this is your fault. You hear me? What happened to Paige was not your fault.”

“I’m the only one left to blame,” I say in defeat, pulling out of his embrace, and swimming toward the shore. Waves crash over my head, but I keep coming back up, Zaden close at my side. The current carries us fast, through the narrow passage of the East Inlet and around to the jetty. I swim hard around the outer ridge of rocks, into the calmer waters of the cove around the marina, and steady until I feel the sand beneath my boots. I’m panting, my arms on fire from the swim, my trembling legs barely supporting me. I can see Zaden in my periphery, escorting me, protecting me from myself.

Rain continues to pour as I cross the beach toward the Sunrise Motel.

“Skye,” Zaden calls after me, and I stop, turning back to face him. My heart speeds in my chest at the sound of my name on his lips. My real name.

“Just let me go,” I reply softly.

“If I was capable of that, I would have by now.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “Why do you keep trying to save me, Zaden?”

“Haven’t you figured that out yet?” He asks, closing the distance between us. “I’m in love with you.” His hand wraps around my arm, warm and firm and grounding.

“You’re in love with Ivy,” I counter. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know you,” he argues. “You’re strong, fearless, and fiercely independent. You suck at following directions because you only follow your own. You have the skill and knowledge to overshadow most people, but you don’t let them see it. You stay in the background and let them shine.” He steps closer to me, his voice softening. “You’re dedicated, with an unwavering, single-minded devotion to those you love. And you don’t love easy. Once you let them in, they’re a part of you, and you protect them with everything you have.” His thumb traces circles on the inside of my arm. “You’ll die before you ask for help, but you’re confident enough to believe you don’t need it. And I know you feel like you’re all alone in this, but you’re not.”

“Zaden,” I whisper through the rain.

“I fell for you that night you showered beneath the stars, and every night after. I may not have known your name, but I know you.”

My heart tumbles in my chest, end over end into the abyss, utterly lost for this man. Even in my darkest moment, he can see the light in me.

“I tried not to love you,” I reply back, my eyes locked with his. “But I suck at that too.” I slide my arms around his neck, andour lips collide, hot and hungry and desperate. He pulls me against him, his hands stroking down my back as his tongue finds mine. My skin heats despite the rain, my hands sliding into his hair as his mouth angles across mine, and kisses a trail down my jaw to my throat. The stubble on his face rasps against my skin, my breath catching as his lips lock onto the pulse at the base of my neck.

Rain falls in sheets as lightning snakes through the clouds above us, followed by a rumble of thunder. The feeling of his warm arms around me, encompassing me and grounding me, sends fissures through the walls I’ve built so carefully around my heart. He loves with his whole body. It’s all around him. In the places we touch, in the air we breathe. For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel alone. Even when the world is so fucked up I don’t recognize it, and I fall, he’s there to catch me.

I pull his mouth back to mine, exploring his lips, memorizing every line and curve of his face. His hand slides under my wet tank and up my chest to close over my breast, my hardened nipple pressing into his palm. He groans.

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