Page 46 of Writhe
And it guts me. I press my forehead to the mattress beside her, my breath dragging in sharp and ragged. My fingers curl into the sheets, like if I hold on tight enough, I can keep from coming apart. The words slip out before I can stop them, raw, bleeding, and real. “Eliza, I love you.”
She stirs, the faintest flutter of lashes, and reaches for me in her half-conscious haze. Her fingers skim my jaw, light as a whisper. I should pull away—I should.But I can’t. I can only shake. She blinks at me, still lost in sleep’s grasp, but I know—I know—she heard me. “You don’t have to say that.”
But I do.
I turn my head, just enough to meet her eyes in the dark. “I’ll get us out of here,” I whisper. “I swear it.”
A moment. A breath. Her fingers twitch against my skin. Her eyes finally open softly, scanning until they meet mine. “Theo. . .”
She doesn’t finish, but I know what she means.
“You don’t believe me . . .”
Her lip’s part, hesitation swimming in her gaze. It’s not a doubt. Not in me. It’s something worse. Like she knows we can’t leave.
I grab her hand, flattening it against my chest, pressing it to where my heart is hammering against my ribs. “Feel that?” I rasp. “I mean it. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Her breath shudders. “And then what?”
I blink. “What?”
“If we leave . . .” She swallows. “Where will we go?”
“We.”
The word is a drug, a knife, a promise. I don’t have an answer. The world outside doesn’t want people like us. The world outside will never let us have this. But I don’t give a fuck about the world. I just know I can’t lose her.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I’d rather burn the whole fucking world down than stay here another second without you.”
She exhales, soft and shaky, and I don’t know if she wants to cry or scream or kiss me. So I make the choice for her. I crush my mouth to hers. Not rough, not desperate—not at first. Just a press of lips, reverent, a prayer in the dark. But then she responds, and something in me snaps.
Her fingers twist in my hair, pulling me closer instead of pushing me away. I press her back into the mattress, my hands trembling as they slide over her, as I drink her in like she’s the only thing keeping me alive.
I don’t know what we are. I don’t know if love like this can survive in a place like this. But I know one thing: she’s mine. And I’ll kill anyone who tries to take her away.
Eliza lies beneath me, her fingers tracing slowly, idle patterns along my jaw. I let my weight rest beside her, arm draped over her stomach, head buried in the crook of her neck.
“You’re shaking,” she whispers. I exhale against her throat, pressing a lazy kiss there, nuzzling into her warmth like I could disappear inside her.
“I’m always shaking,” I murmur. “Only time I stop is when I’m with you.”
She doesn’t say anything about that. Just trails her fingers down my arm, over the bruises, the half-moon cuts from my own nails digging in too hard. She lifts my wrist, turns it over in the dim glow of the room, and presses a soft kiss on the inside of it.
Something in me clenches, painful and sweet.
“Have you ever thought about what it’d be like?”
“What?”
Her lips curve, soft but sad. “Being free.”
I swallow. “Yeah,” I admit. “All the time.”
She shifts, curling closer, draping herself over me now. “Tell me,” she urges, tracing the dark circles under my eyes. “What’s the dream, Theo?”
I close my eyes, exhaling slowly. “The dream.” I don’t let myself think about it much. Dreams are dangerous. They taste too much like hope, and hope is a fucking sickness. But for her? I let myself imagine. “A house. Somewhere warm. Somewhere on a beach. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
She hums, nodding.
