My bones are weary and everything aches, right down to my very soul.

Javi lays me in bed. His bed. If I had any energy left to argue, I still don't know that I could.

I certainly don't have any fight left when he lies beside me and swallows me in his arms. He holds me while I cry. Comforting the hurt that he caused. The despair that is so much a part of me now I doubt I'll ever be right again.

I think that Javi is correct. He has broken me completely this time.

He thinks I can protect myself now. But I've never been able to protect myself from him. Because even as we lay here in the solace of darkness, unburdened from the heavy strain that still lives between us in the light- his presence does comfort me.

I bury my face into his chest and breathe him in. I beg him to stop. What, I don't know. I just want it to stop. I want it all to go away.

Either let the blackness swallow me whole, or push me back into the light. It’s too much. Too much to be torn between the two.

He holds me closer still and tells me it will all be over soon. Then he kisses me. He kisses me like it's the last time he will ever kiss me. And we fall asleep.

Together.

* * *

I wake with a sluggish heartbeat and an invisible pressure bearing down on me.I don't know where it came from, this foreboding feeling inside of me. Because when I open my eyes, Javi is still there. Watching me silently as he strokes my arm.

Desolation shadows his eyes, and I think it is only fair. I wonder if he slept at all, and then I remind myself that I don’t care. Because I hate him.

We all lie to ourselves, sometimes.

His scars are unsheltered in the early morning light. Old and new, they litter his body in shades of pink and white. Today, my monster is visibly fraught with sorrow.

This battle has raged within him for so long. Whatever torture Javi suffered, it extended far beyond his body. It embedded itself within his mind and made a home there.

He’s been caught between two sides, just as I have.

Only now, he’s made his decision. It’s written in his eyes. What’s done is done. But I don’t have a map to his secret language, and I am too weary to guess anymore. Whatever my fate is, it’s for the gods or Javi to decide.

He pets my cheek and brushes his lips against my forehead. Gentle. Sweet. Reverent. It terrifies me. It soothes me. And I cry when I reach out to touch him.

I'm in too much pain to move. Javi does not smile this time. He does not exalt in this kind of pain. Instead, he tells me to hold tight while he retrieves some pills and a glass of water. He helps me to sit up and waits until I have swallowed them before he lays me back down.

The distance between us now may as well be an ocean. He remains on the edge of the bed. His thoughts are somewhere else.

"What is it, Javi?" I ask him. "What's happening?"

His eyes move over me, and they are open now. Mournful and reverent.

"I was only thinking that perhaps I would like to be selfish," he says.

"I don't understand what you mean.”

His lip curls up at the corner in the faintest hint of a smile.

"I think you have made me want to keep you. And that would be the most selfish thing of all, my Bella.”

I don't want to hope. I don't want to fall for any more of his cruel deceptions. I can’t afford to get stung again. Not when I am so empty. But it does not feel like a trick anymore. Not with his eyes on me like this. Not with his voice gentle and sad and thoughtful.

"You said you would always keep me," I remind him. "Always."

I don't want him to throw me away. Maybe that makes me pathetic. Maybe it makes me so fucked up in the head I can't be fixed. But when he even mentions a scenario where we don’t exist together, I can't cope. The possibility douses me in fresh terror.

Javi is the poison I drink so willingly because nothing else has ever tasted so sweet.

He is everything. The light and the dark. The solace and the pain. The torment and the peace. And I can't imagine not having him here with me. I can't even consider it.

My nails dig into the flesh of my palms until I draw blood.

"You promised," I tell him again. "You promised that you would keep me forever."

"My Bella." He comes back to me, tilting my chin so that his lips hover over mine. "It is alright. I am here now, yes?"

I buckle in his arms, and he catches me. His touch hurts like nothing else ever has.

It is the best kind of pain. The only pain I ever want. Javi drags his nose down my throat, breathing me in.

"Say what you said before," he whispers. “Say it, and this time, I will try to believe it."

It scares me. It scares me so much I hold onto him so he can’t let me go. But I say the words. I tell him the irrefutable truth in our bed of lies.

"I love you, Javi. I love you so much. You've fucked me up so bad. You've messed with my head, and I don't know... there are so many things I don't know. I don't know how to fix them. Or unbreak them. But this is the one thing I know. I love you."

He does not lash out this time. He holds me. He kisses me.

Whispered apologies flow from his lips over and over. He tells me everything is going to be alright. He says he will protect me and never let me go.

For once, my mind and my heart are at peace. There is light in the darkness.

And I believe him.