Page 75 of My Lovely Tragedy
“We’re not gonna be okay, are we?” I slur, eyes rolling back as I fall into the pit of lethargy. Tobias doesn’t answer for a long time, and I settle into the silence, just another blanket on top of me.
As I fall under, I hear his voice, harsh and cracked. A dream in the vacancy. “You’ll be okay,corvus.As long as you hold on.”
* * *
The morning is spentwith Tobias against me, his heat warming my own, fingers tracing patterns across my skin. Unmarked or otherwise.
Occasionally, his head will dip down so he can bury his nose in my hair. Hair he keeps winding around his fingers, coiling tight and threatening to rip the very strands from my scalp before unraveling and repeating the whole process over.
And I find that I quite like it. The tug and pulls, the ease and anticipation. It’s small, something that’s insignificant, but I find comfort in it. In another way Tobias touches me, grounds me to the moment—to him.
Not a single word has been shared between us since the moment I cracked my eyes open to the sun glaring through the opened curtains across the room. I watched the sunrise with envy—and with something akin to peace. A tranquility I’ve never felt before.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” I ask, afraid to break the silence but needing to know. Or maybe I just need to hear his voice. An assurance I’m not lost inside my own mind. That this is impossibly real.
He remains quiet for so long, I’m afraid he won’t answer. His fingers pluck and tug at my hair some more. The fingers on his right arm graze over the bandages on my left.
“I cannot say that with confidence.”
I blink. Lean my head back. Glance up at him, searching for eyes I know he won’t give me right now. “What does that mean?” I ask as I stare at the underside of his jaw. My fingers tug at the fabric of his pants, stiff from having dried weird throughout the night. His thighs flex on either side of me, stiffening. Preparing for retreat. I press my palms flat, digging in.
After a moment, he takes a deep breath. I feel his shrug against my back. Watch him swallow. “I justwanted,Brooklyn. The rest…” He vaguely gestures outward with his hand. “The rest fell into place. Jagged pieces that somehow fit where they landed.”
“Speaking in confound metaphors again, huh?” I lean further back against his shoulder so I can see the side of his face instead of just his neck. His glasses are pressed close to his face for once, and his eyelashes nearly graze the lens with every blink. His mouth quirks, hands still playing idly with my hair.
Before Tobias, I never would’ve known why people like having their hair played with. It’s just hair, for fuck’s sake. But I get it now. Painfully so.
My eyes close of their own volition at the rhythmic tug, the scrape of nails. The sizzling path of goosebumps. The rise and fall of his chest, the constriction of his arm around my waist, legs pressed against mine.
“Metaphors, yes. Confounded, no. You understand precisely what I mean.” He noses along the shell of my ear, and I hum.
It’s strange, no longer fighting it. No longer having any fight left in me at all.
Something in the back of my mind flickers, a small pulse of life, telling me this is the wrong choice. That I should try harder. That this isn’titfor me. But it’s so easy to shove down, to pretend it doesn’t even fucking exist.
Tobias has more than proven I’m his until he says otherwise. I fought. I lost.
Now, I’m just content existing with him. In his arms—in him.And after what he did last night… how he fucking saw me—yet again—and gave me what he did without anger or, worse,pity.Just pure, unadulteratedpassion.
I’ll never fucking find that again, and I’m selfish enough to admit I want it. As fucked up and disgusting as it is. What’s it matter when he doesn’t care? Promises broken hold no relevance. Years of abstinence gone in a blink, and I’m too anesthetized to care.
All I have is this—and this is all I need.
The world outside these walls doesn’t exist. Itcan’t.
A sob surges its way up my throat, burning my nostrils and pricking painfully at my eyes. I turn into his throat and bury my nose against his warm flesh, scruff scraping against my overheated skin as my breath blows back at me. Tobias’s arms tighten, but he doesn’t say anything.
He doesn’t have to because he knows.
I still tell him anyway.
“I can’t be alone after that. After what you gave me. Don’t—” I choke, snot and tears gurgling. My back bows as a cough wracks through me. He only holds me tighter, increasing the pressure across my chest as I work to catch my breath. Tears fall in hot streaks, making me itch as they absorb into the collar of his sweater. Once cream colored… now stained with my lifeblood.
Just as he’s stained every fucking inch of me. Bloodied and muddled and ruined.
“Don’t leave me alone,” I croak, hating the truth even as I spill it. I turn in his arms until my front presses against his and my chains twine between us. His chest is soft against my face, the perfect pillow for the insecurities eating me alive.
He drags his palm down the length of my spine, over each vertebra, pressing into the spaces between. Filling more of me with more of him. Until my bones ache at the loss of his touch, my atoms reaching for his, crying out in agony at the realization they’ll never truly touch. Never connect, even as it’s their one true purpose.
