After Rain Falls (River of Rain, #2)

by C.E. Ricci

It’s River. Every star in the night sky would have to burn out before it isn’t River. And maybe even then,

Whatever word is stronger than love, that’s what I feel for him. He is the object of my obsession, the gravity for my orbit, every star in the night sky, reminding me that I’m not alone. He’s the center of my goddamn universe.

I might not be the son you asked for, but you sure as hell aren’t the father I wanted either.”

So, I know this is it. What rock bottom looks, feels, sounds, smells, and tastes like. It looks like all your dreams being doused in gasoline and set ablaze by those you love the most. It feels like the most intense heat, burning hotter than the sun with anger and disdain radiating in licks and flashes of fire. It sounds like the cracking and breaking of your very soul. The foundation of who you are being unable to defy gravity any longer when the embers become too heavy before it collapses around you in shambles. It smells like smoke to the point you can’t fucking breathe anymore without suffocating. And it tastes like salt and embers. From the ashes sticking to the tears streaming down your face as you watch your world, everything you’ve ever worked for, go up in smithereens. Without a single clue how to stop it.

But the cold, hard truth is…I already am alone. So fucking alone, and the silence is deafening. Even in a crowd of people, I feel it. Alone. Abandoned. Forgotten. Numb. I let out a sigh of resignation. How can emptiness feel so heavy?

I’m on fire, burning up with the soft, gentle touch of his fingers on my skin. It’s sending me down into a raging inferno I know I won’t come back from.

“You can glare at me with only ice left in your heart every time you see me. Freeze me out as if it can make you feel less. But just know, it doesn’t stop my veins from boiling the minute I see you. Every thought of you burns my skin. And knowing my sleep is the only place I’m able to kiss you, touch you, and feel the fire you consume me in…makes me crave the nightmares.”

Because he carved his name into my heart when he tore it from my chest. I don’t think there will ever be a day it doesn’t beat for him.

Just him. To claim and to own. To touch and love and fuck and worship. Mine.

Because the love flowing through us is something only achieved by fate swooping in and giving you the piece of the puzzle you never knew was missing. The other half of a whole. He’s mine. Only mine. Just like I’m his. And I know now, we’re no longer an almost. We’re everything.

“Your name was already inscribed on my heart and etched in my soul. The only place it was missing was inked on my skin.”

“You die, I die too,” I murmur gruffly into his hair, barely more than a whisper tearing itself from my throat. “I go where you go, River. That’s what forever means.” And I know in that moment, I mean every word. I’d walk through hell just to find him and pull him back out the other side. Barter my soul to a God I don’t believe in to keep him safe. “I love you.”

“Baby, I’ll always fight for you, right by your side. Don’t ever doubt I’d go to war for you.”