Page 132 of The Truth About Love

“Promise me?” I beg.

“I fucking swear it.”

“Okay,” I whisper, panting as he slowly begins to thrust into me again.

I don’t know how long it will take for me to lose that persistent insecurity that he’ll find some other reason that he can’t be with me. I don’t know how long it will be to fully trust him again.

But I believe that he means what he says.

And that’s enough for now.

When his speed picks up and the ecstasy builds, my fingers dig half-moons into his back and my head falls against the wall behind me.

“I love you,” he pants. “God, I love you so fucking much.”

It’s his words that push me over the edge. I come, pulsing around him and sobbing in pleasure.

“I love you. I love you. I love you.” The words are unstoppable and barely coherent, but still I chant them over and over like a prayer. Because what Auden and I have may be flawed, it may even be toxic at times, but it’s also sacred.

Later, he makes love to me again. In bed this time.

We fall onto the covers in a mess of tangled limbs and wet kisses.

Our clothes come off, our breathing labours. He slides inside me with no preamble or preparation. It isn’t needed anyway.

And like that, connected as one person, we rock together. We let our bodies do the talking. We make promises with our lips and gentle caresses.

This is it now.

Me and Auden.

Finally, after all this time, we’ll get our happily ever after.

Our story hasn’t an easy one, but every obstacle, every bump in the road along the way has led us here to each other’s arms.

We were always going to end up here. Whether it was almost a decade ago in high school or two years ago or several months ago. And maybe I didn’t believe it until now, but there was never a possibility of us being apart.

Because our souls are connected like puzzle pieces, like metals of the strongest magnetism. We have no choice but to be together.

Belonging to Auden is so deeply entrenched in my being that I wouldn’t know who I was if I didn’t.

He fills the empty parts of me, he completes me in a way no one else ever could. With every touch and kiss and whispered word, he makes me whole.

And I think I do for the same for him.

I don’t know the truth about love for everybody. I guess it’s different for everyone. But mine and Auden’s is intense. It’s wild and explosive and chaotic.

It’s perfect.

And it’s ours.

The End.

Epilogue

Auden

The first time I see her, she’s being held up to me through a clear plastic screen. Her head is tilted backwards as she screams into the hospital room, announcing her presence to the world. Her tiny fingers are splayed, her little lips pursed, as she’s wrapped in a fluffy white towel and placed into my arms, purple and slimy and a little bit gross. She’s beautiful.

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