Page 40 of Pucking Unhinged
I clear my throat, the words sinking heavy in my chest where I’ll keep them forever, and then I read aloud to Tristan.
ENTRY ONE:I met you today, and you are nothing short of lovely. I have never wanted to know someone so much in my life. I have this intense need to be near you, and I’ve never felt that way about anyone before. In fact, I usually do my best to avoid everyone. I’m going to do my best not to scare you more than you already are, but I hope someday you can trust me. I’ll always protect you, I can promise you that, and I never break a promise.
My voice shakes with emotion because he’s literally kept a log of every single thought he’s ever had about us. My hands tremble as I turn the page, and then another, and then another. Each entry is a piece of Tristan I’ve never seen before, his heart pressed into ink for me alone.
ENTRY FIFTY-TWO:You laughed today, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything so pure. I don’t laugh much myself, but I realized today that I’d do anything to make you smile like that again. Everyone else fades away when you’re around. It’s only you I see. Only you I want to hear.
ENTRY ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT:You told me about your grandmother’s locket today and how you never met her or your mother. You said that little circle was the only piece of them you had. Someone kept it when they moved you to another foster home. You trusted me with that, and it means everything to me. I don’t know how yet, but I swear I’ll get it back for you.
“I have been searching for it every single day. We thought we found it a few times, but it wasn’t the same one. But I can assure you, I never break a promise,” Tristan says, and there’s something comforting in his tone. Like it’s already done, like he’s so certain he could never break a promise to me. It doesn’t escape me that Tristan doesn’t make promises to anyone else.I flip forward, my chest tight, my throat aching. I’m torn because I want to know everything in these books, but at the same time I want to slow down because I know I’ll never be able to experience this feeling for the first time again.
ENTRY TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN:I started teaching myself the Russian language the same day I learned you learned to speak it as a child. I practice a little each night because I want a part of you that no one else can have. No one else in your life now speaks anything other than English, so thiswill be special, just for us. I’ll whisper it to you someday, and maybe you’ll understand just how much I need to belong to you.
I bite my lip hard, but the tears still sting, still threaten. The candlelight flickering over the pages somehow makes all of this even more romantic.
ENTRY FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETY:I hate when people look at you too long. I hate that they think they’re allowed to. They don’t know you the way I know you, and they never will. They don’t deserve the privilege of your attention. Sometimes I think about breaking their faces, just to remind them you’re not theirs to see. You’re mine. You always will be, even if you don’t know it yet, someday you will.
“I’ve been obsessed with you since the beginning. It sounds erratic and over the top, but I meant…and still do…every single word,” Tristan says unapologetically. I don’t want him to apologize for the way he feels about me. I love it, I treasure every single thought he wrote down for me.
I turn more pages, faster now, devouring every line. All the while, Tristan presses his mouth to my shoulder, the side of my throat, the crown of my head, his lips claiming.
ENTRY EIGHT HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIVE:It fucking hurts. My chest aches when you’re not close enough to touch. I love you, dushen’ka.
A tear slips down my cheek before I can stop it. My hand shakes on the page. I can hardly breathe from the sheer devotion he has for me. Years of it without wavering, he has loved me so wholly in silence. I feel honored, yes. But more than that, I feel claimed. I feel wanted in a way I never thought possible.
Tristan lifts the journal from my hands and sets it on the edge of the tub, and I make a mental note to spend the rest of my life pouring over his words. His fingers brush my wrist as he turns me in his arms to face him. I gasp at the feel of him, at howright this feels. Tristan presses his mouth to my upper cheek and kisses the tears falling there like they’re meant for him.
His hand slips between us and, gentle and sure, he guides me down on top of his hardness until I’m fully seated on him. His hips lift, trying to make sure he’s as deep inside of me as he can possibly get. He buries his face in my neck, and his voice is low and raw when he says the thing I’ve wanted to hear for so long.
“I wasn’t alive, not really, until I met you,” he whispers, hot against my skin. “I’ve loved you from the very beginning. I’ve needed you since that day. I knew the instant our eyes met that you were meant for me.”
I cup his face and kiss him hard and slow, and for a long moment we don’t move. We simply exist in the same space, breathing the same breath, letting our bodies settle together.
“I love you, dushen’ka,” he says, every syllable a vow. “I need you to know that. It’s more than that. It’s everything. You are every single thing in this life to me.”
The sound of Tristan’s voice breaks something open in me. I tip my head up and press my lips to his again, tasting him, feeling every part of him against me. “I love you, Tristan,” I answer, and the truth comes out perfectly without me having to think about what I should say to him to convey how I feel. “I wished for you before I knew what I was wishing for. I wished for a family to make me feel whole, to care for me as much as I care for them. To belong somewhere, to someone. You gave me that, and I knew I wanted to be that for you too as soon as we met. It’s a connection I could never explain even if I tried.”
Tristan’s hand settles on my hip and whispers it again like he’s tattooing the words into me. “I love you. I love you. I love you. Now that I’ve said it, I’ll never stop.”
TRISTAN
Ihate shit like this. I hate the small talk. But Winter wants to support her friend, and I’d do anything to make her happy, so here we are at David’s Diner of all places. It’s Paris Hastings’ birthday, and I’m not sure why she would pick this place. The Moretti triplets treat her like she’s their real sister. They would have let her have a party wherever she wanted. I’m probably missing a bunch of information because it doesn’t involve Winter so I simply do not care. We’re here, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I don’t think you can even find this place on the internet, and I think that’s a very good thing. How is it still in business? At the very least, how has it not been shut down? There’s an older woman with yellow hair and a cigarette wrapping silverware at the front payment counter. I watch as she picks up a butter knife by the wrong end with her bare hand and wrap it anyway. She rubs her hand through her poofed up hair that’s pinned back on the sides and grabs a fork by the wrong end. For as grimy as this place is, most of the booths are full. The patrons are probably truck drivers if the parking lot is any indication.
The diner smells like burnt coffee, fryer oil, and something too sweet. Maybe syrup or powdered sugar? Whatever it is, feelslike it’s sticking to the back of my throat. Vinyl booths line the wall, cracked and scuffed. The checkerboard floor is worn down where a thousand shoes have dragged it flat. A neon sign buzzes in the window, cheap pink light bleeding into the room that says closed. I guess the silverware lady didn’t turn it off when she came in this morning.
Winter doesn’t seem to see this place like I do, because she’s looking around in wonderment like it’s the coolest place she’s ever been. This is the same girl who, when she saw the grand entrance of the Black Crown Resort, didn’t bat an eye. Her hand fits in mine so perfectly, and I’m still getting used to the fact that I can just hold her, kiss her any time I want. She pulls me toward the booth where Madi is already tucked in, on her knees and arranging the raggedy looking table with presents that she, Lilac and Winter wrapped last night while they drank wine and pretended to eat the gross cookie concoction that Callum swore was his grandmother’s recipe.
Even Hayden wouldn’t eat any, and that says all I need to know right there.
Pink, white and green wrapping paper with bows, flowers, stripes and polka dots are stacked at her elbow like she’s building a little fort of gifts. Hayden’s sitting next to her, but he doesn’t even look up to acknowledge us. He’s smelling her hair like a fucking weirdo, and I know exactly how hypocritical I sound right now.
It’s weird when he does it, but completely necessary when I dip my head and take a deep breath of Winter because that’s all I need to get through this fucking shitshow.
I didn’t know when Madi and Lilac became friends with Paris. To be fair, everyone here, Winter excluded, could catch on fire and I wouldn’t notice.
Winter leans away from me to squeeze Madi’s arm and says softly, “This is perfect!” The way she says it makes something inmy chest loosen. She’s so relaxed, and even though I’ve mentally bitched about everything I’ve had to do today besides being with my girl, I’m relaxed too.
