Page 93 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
“I love your mind,” he says finally, his voice soft. “The way you connect stories to the world—but that’s only one. Maybe ours, and maybe not. We’ll never know if we don’t try.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t.” My voice trembles. “What if this whole thing was a cosmic mistake? What if we were supposed to stay away from each other all along, like I thought?”
He tilts his head, his expression thoughtful. “And what if it’s the opposite? What if we’re Zola’s way of finding balance? Putting together two people with a similar predisposition?” he counters.
“That’s not—” I start to protest, but he cuts me off gently.
“I’m not saying that’s what this is. My point is, there are an infinite number of ‘what if’s.’ If you let them stop you from making a decision, then you’re only going to imprison yourself. Whether you built the cage or not, it’s still a cage.” His lips curve into a small, almost shy smile. “You’ve been trying to stop yourself from falling for me this whole time. Because of your past or your powers, but I love you, Wendy.”
He laughs and tears form in his eyes. He’s realizing this for himself, right now, right here. Am I, too? Or did I already know?
“Wendy Estridon, I’m in love with you.” I open my mouth, and he puts a finger to my lips. “Don’t say anything, not unless it’s a confession, because I’m about to do something, and I don’t want to let my what if’s stop me.”
I close my mouth.
I’m trying to let the sensation of air leaving my chest pass. It only grows more intense.
He loves me. I feel the same.
If I’m capable of doing to someone I love what I did to him, then what does love truly mean for me?
Azaire holds his journal in his shaking hand, opening to a random page. The journal that he’s feared me touching every time I held it.
The journal that holds all of him.
I don’t deserve it.
“Read it,” he says, handing the open journal to me.
I’ve never read something he’s written before.
Slowly, I unfold the page, looking at him as I do. Waiting for him to change his mind and tear it back.
He doesn’t, and I care too much to do it myself.
The guilt of overtaking his emotions, his mind, presses down on me like water—like I’m suffocating for air—until I finally catch the words on the page.
I know that change is inevitable, that there is nothing constant in life. But when I look into her eyes, I don’t believe it. What I do believe is that, more than anything, she and I will break those odds.
Azaire stutters. “I-I have more, it’s just—”
Suddenly, everything sharpens into one overwhelming moment. Into the ache in my chest and the tears threatening to spill.
I scoot closer to him.
This time, when I kiss him, all I can feel isme. My love, my heart, my feelings. My hands drape around his neck and my fingers reach up his head. They graze over his snakes, and he shudders.
Maybe it’s the way he softens me with his touch and opens my closed borders, but he’s seeped into me like rain in the cracks of an orchard.
I lean my forehead against his, our noses forming the ghost of a touch. I put my hand on his chest.
“I want to feel you the way you feel me,” he murmurs.
I won’t hurt him.
I can’t.
I kiss him again, until my lips burn. Then I force myself to take off my glove. Only one.
