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I’ve always known I have the most supportive people in my corner, but I’m not always the best at letting them be there for me.
Mallory and I weren’t good together. We were great. We were a collision of destiny and inevitability. We were fate personified. We were everything.
“I don’t know how to let you go.” The statement is a half whisper, half laugh, but there’s nothing amusing about the way his jaw clenches after he says it. He shakes his head like he hates himself for speaking those words.
“Truth or dare, princess?” “Truth.” “Do you want to come up to my room with me?” “Yes.”
Because it means I’m the only person in the world she’s comfortable asking to take care of her, even if it’s just for a moment, even if it’s just in this way.
I’d freeze time if it meant I would never run out of opportunities to look at you.”
“Because from the second I found out Eric was gone, all I wanted to do was hold you long enough to absorb your grief. To take every ounce of the pain you’ve been holding and carry it for you. When I boarded that plane, I knew I had no right to want any of those things, to want anything from you, but I want this, princess. I want to be here for you. Will you let me?”
Grief is funny like that. It just comes out of nowhere, demanding your time and attention, not caring where you are or what you’re doing.”
“And I wanted you. I needed you. I needed you so badly I wished for you, Chris.”
“Do you know how desperate you have to be to wish for someone who destroyed you, to crave their presence even when you know it’s only going to cause you pain?”
It’s the magnetism that exists between two people even when there are a million other people in the room. It’s knowing exactly how many steps it will take you to get to them no matter where they are in relation to you. The frantic thrum of colliding hearts when you finally reach them, when you finally touch them.
“The first time I kissed you, everything before you ceased to exist. Your taste, your touch, your smell, eradicated it all. You erased me, turned me into a clean slate, a blank page that only you could fill in. There was nothing before you, Mallory, and if I have my way there will be nothing after you. You are the first woman I’ve ever loved. The only one I’ve ever chased.”
“Truth or dare, Christopher.” He runs his tongue over his teeth, a disbelieving huff of amusement passing his lips. “Truth.” “If I run are you going to chase me?” “I’d chase you to the ends of this Earth, Mallory.”
“Beautiful.” I sigh, breathless. “Stunning,” Chris adds, and when I turn to look at him his eyes aren’t on the sky at all. They’re on me. My heart flips over in my chest, and I feel heat creeping into my cheeks. I don’t understand how he can still make me blush after all these years.
Shame tries to wash over me, but I push the feeling down because there’s nothing shameful about grieving, about feeling deeply. There’s power in owning these feelings, peace in acknowledging that they exist. I can tell that Chris was prepared to tell me the same thing if he needed to, and when he realizes that he doesn’t, pride shines in his eyes.
It’s a rhetorical question, but we both know the answer: because I love him, and I’ve always loved him. When he was here and he was mine. When he was gone and he was, for all intents and purposes, hers. Even now, when he’s going, ripping out another part of my foolish heart that only beats when he’s holding it in his hands, I love him.
“We won’t ever be done, princess. If we’re both here on this Earth, breathing, living, existing, then we are happening. Nothing is ever going to stop me from loving you.”
