Merry Me

by C.R. Jane

This time, I wasn’t giving her space to run. I wasn’t letting her talk herself out of us, out of what we had. This time, I was going all in. I’d already lost her once. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. Not when I’d waited this long. Not when every part of me still wanted her. This time…I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

“You should know me better than that to think that just because you said you were done…that it meant I was done too,”

“Why did you follow me?” “I’d follow you anywhere.”

“Why can’t I stop thinking about you? Tell me when this is supposed to leave my system, Natalie, because fuck knows I’ve tried.”

It wasn’t just a kiss. It was a slow, soul-level detonation.

“You can lie to yourself all you want. But you’re mine, Natalie. You always have been. And I’m not walking away this time.”

“I’m here,” I said simply, “because I still care. Because I want to know the woman you’ve become. Because no matter how much time has passed…being near you still feels like home. Like I’ve been holding my breath for years and only now remember how to breathe.”

“But you?” His gaze dipped to my mouth, then back up to my eyes. “You’re tattooed on my memory. You’re not chemistry. You’re gravity. You are the standard. The girl every other girl has failed—and will always fail—to be.”

“Because I’ve seen what life is like without you,” he said, pressing his lips gently to my forehead, like I was fragile porcelain he didn’t dare drop. “And I’ll never live it again.”

“You’re every late night I couldn’t sleep. Every word I wrote but never sent. Every breath that felt too heavy without you next to me.”

“But after a while, I stopped. I told myself he was gone. That I’d never see him again. That it was safer to grieve someone alive than keep hoping for something that would never happen.”