Page 110 of Downfall

And enough to ensure that Roman and I will never have a future. That we will forever be enemies from now on.

He kisses me again. I kiss him back, trying not to cry, trying to savour this moment because this will be my last, our last. Tomorrow I will leave. I will flee this city and I will never see Roman or any other Montague again.

I’ll be free. Finally I will be free.

And yet, even as that thought settles in my head I can’t help feel the anguish that I’m leaving him. That right now he thinks I’m giving in, that I’m allowing us to be what we were.

Only he was the one who ruined us the first time. He was the one that twisted this all.

What I’m doing now is justified.

What I’m doing now is necessary.

And yet I hate myself for it. I hate that I’m tricking him. Hate that this moment, us, it’s just as tainted as all the ones before.

I shut my eyes, trying to focus on the physical. On the now. On it just being me and him. On how on so many levels this feels right, it’s always felt right.

I’ve dreamt of this, longed for this, hungered for Roman’s touch for so long and now that I have it I can’t truly enjoy it.

“You’re so fucking beautiful.” Roman murmurs.

I kiss him to shut him up. I can’t hear his praise, his adorations, because it’s only making this worse.

My body hurtles closer and closer to climax. Somehow Roman’s always known how to make me come. It’s like we’re uniquely attuned to each other’s needs that we know exactly how to touch, how to tease. But it’s more than that too, we connect on level that’s more than physical, that makes this more than just sex.

And I think that’s what makes what I’m doing all the worse.

Because Roman is my soulmate. Deep down I know it. Deep down I’ve always known it.

And what kind of person fucks their soulmate over the way I am?

I gulp, shuddering. I’m so close now that my guilt and my ecstasy are merging into one, causing tears to stream down my face. If Roman notices I don’t know but his lips are against mine again. His hands are holding me to him and I’m lost in those kisses, in that embrace.

We come as one. Him groaning into my mouth and me clinging to him desperate for this last moment, desperate for this last memory.

We slump together, a mass of sweaty limbs. Tangled. Intwined.

“Rose.” Roman murmurs.

I blink looking at him, then looking away. I can’t meet his eyes. I can’t face him.

He lays back, sinking into the sheets.

And before he can say anything, before he can speak more about his love, I slink away, sliding my dress back into place, disappearing into the darkness.

I am a whore.

I’m exactly what my father called me six years ago. I’m exactly what he called me yesterday to my face.

I’m a whore and a coward.

And yet I did it for us. I had to do it. I had no choice. I won’t let history repeat itself. I can’t let it. I have to escape. I have to get us both out of this city before this rivalry once again turns the streets into a battlefield.

Roman

Iwake and it’s just me. Alone. It wasn’t like I expected her to have come back. I watched her go, watched her sneak away after like we were still teenagers and yet I’d hoped I’d imagined it, that she was here, in my arms all the same.

I roll onto my back staring at the ceiling. My Rose came back just as I knew she would but in so many ways she’s still not mine. Not really. We’re still circling. Still trying to find our feet.

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