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I can only return to normal when Elsa’s beside me where she belongs. She promised. She fucking promised.
That boy was my friend, my light in the darkness. Eli sent him to me.
“You made a promise, Elsa. Fucking keep it.”
“I don’t give promises I don’t keep. You’re the one who does that over and over again. I told you loving me is a one-way road. I told you not to say the fucking words if you didn’t mean them.”
I throw a glance at him over my shoulder. “I meant those words. I love you, Aiden, but I also love myself enough to walk away from you.”
“When I grow up, I’m gonna buy you a bucket of Maltesers.” “Why?” “Because Dad says you have to buy gifts for the one you marry.” “Marry?” I whisper. “Yup!” She grins. “When I grow up, I’m going to marry you.”
“Promise you’ll marry me.” She holds out her pinkie. I curl mine around hers. “I promise.”
Elsa is slowly pulling away from me. I can feel it down to my soul and damn bones.
If she can get over me so quickly, why the fuck has she told me she loved me? Empty words. Empty promises.
“I’m not running away.” My voice raises with every word. “I’m walking the hell away from you, Aiden. You’re cancer who’ll keep eating me from the inside out until there’s nothing left. I’m done being your pawn. I’m done being played. I’m choosing me this time. Not you. Me!”
“I don’t remember my dreams,” I tell the boy with grey eyes. He pinches my cheek. “I’ll dream for the both of us.” “Promise?” “Promise, Elsa.”
He speaks against my skin, rough and unpolished. “There hasn’t been a day where I haven’t thought about you. Every time I manage to sleep, I dream of you. You were my obsession since we were kids, but now it’s way fucking worse. I don’t know how I managed to spend eight years without you in my life when now I suffocate if I don’t see you for hours.”
“Choose me, Elsa. Choose us.”
“My intentions towards your daughter are simple,” I say with the calmest, most determined voice I can manage. “She’s mine.”
“She’s mine, Jonathan. Mine.” I throw the hair towel away and walk to stand toe to toe with him. “Once you accept that fact, I’ll accept to be your heir. Until then, you’re my enemy.”
“I chose you, Elsa.” He cuts me off, gripping the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles turn white. “I chose you over my mother’s memory, my father, and everything I fucking know. But you never chose me.”
“I was thinking about you, dickhead! I was thinking about how my life is an empty shell without you in it. I was re-reading your texts in class because I couldn’t stop missing you. I had to run in the rain like a lunatic because of thinking about you. So don’t sit here telling me that you’re an afterthought, Aiden. If you were, I wouldn’t be in so much pain right now.”
I stroke her shoulder as she weeps quietly. My hand glides over the curve of her throat and stop at her pulse. Her beating, throbbing pulse. It’s a constant reminder that she’s alive, not dead.
“I thought you were dead.” “I’m not. I’m here, Aiden.”
Maybe I would’ve believed that a few months ago, but not now. I trust Aiden now. I trust he won’t hurt me. I trust he’ll bring the world to its knees for me. “I want to be your queen.”
“You already are.” He grunts against my skin, and I briefly close my eyes at the sensation.
“What I feel for you isn’t only love, obsession, or addiction. It’s all of those and more. Do you know what that means, sweetheart? It means I can’t live without you, so don’t you fucking dare leave me.”
