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You’re my problem, Alex. You’re all of my problems.
In the nineteen times it’s happened in my head, my first time on top of you didn’t look like this.
I pull her frozen body onto my lap, wrapping her in blankets. “I have you,” I whisper against the dirt on her forehead. “You’re okay.” A quiet sob escapes her lips, her whisper barely audible. Her head leans into me the smallest amount. “I’m cold.” I tighten my arms around her limp frame and don’t intend to ever release them. I feel like I could vomit. “I know. I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”
Ophelia is my deadly nightshade. She’s bad for me. I know what she’ll do to me, but she’s too beautiful. Too enticing. She’s too deep in my bloodstream already, painful and ecstatic all at once.
He’s a masterpiece. A culmination of the universe’s finest work.
“Do you want me or do you hate me? You can’t do both. You can’t have both. It’s not possible. In a world full of complicated, Ophelia, my feelings for you are extremely simple.”
Meet me under the rugby stands. I’ll get on my knees and show you just how humble I can be.
“I’ve built my walls too high.” “They’re worth the climb.” “They aren’t.” We stop on the mansion steps, his tone soft. “They are. For me, they are.”
“Fine, I want this. I want you. I can’t escape you, Alex. You’re like the sun. I turn away, I look down, but I can still see you reflected in everything at my feet. If I draw the curtains, you slip through the cracks. I can’t fall for the moon instead because it’s you that illuminates it. None of that changes the fact that we just won’t work. You’re not the problem here. It’s me, and things out of my control.”
“If you end up being the death of me, Winters, I couldn’t ask for a better end.”
Someone making you happy is one thing, but seeing the demons in someone’s eyes go quiet when they look at you? It’s something else entirely.
My sadness, I can manage, but hers? Hers makes me want to let the world burn.
“Then I’ll love you with the same intensity that you hate me. I’ll hold on to you just as hard as you push me away. I’ll fix you like you’re fixing me. I’ll always be here, Ophelia, I’ll sit at the bottom of valleys and stand on the top of mountains with you. We’re too good not to work.”
Forget dying for her. I’d live for her. I feel like I could overcome all the darkness inside if only it meant I’d get a life in her company in return.
“I’m not going to leave you, Ophelia. I love you. And I know you’re not ready to say it back, and I understand why. But I love you in ways I’ve never loved anyone before. My mind has been this shitty shade of gray for so long, and now there’s this little thread of auburn copper.” I wrap a lock of hair around my finger. “This little orange strand runs through the gray like a ray of hope. I love every piece of you, especially the parts that you’ve convinced yourself aren’t worthy of my love.”
