I PLACED MY tray on the silver rods and slid it to the right, looking at the food behind the glass in the cafeteria. A friendly woman, with a net holding her hair back, smiled wide. “What can I get you, dear?”
Hungrier than usual, my stomach answered for me. I clutched at its boldness and offered a weak smile. “Turkey on whole wheat.”
“Coming right up.” She did quick work slicing and laying, before handing it over. “I gave you a little extra.” She winked.
“Thanks.” My appetite was insatiable ever since I’d been working out.
Blake would be so proud. Queasiness rolled through me at the thought of him, but I swallowed it away.
Number seven-million-four-hundred-thousand and ninety-two. That was how many times something had brought my mind to him, and I was sick of it.
I paid the clerk and collected my tray, brushing past a few tables in search of a free one. Ironically, the one I’d occupied on the beautiful sunny day I’d officially met Blake was empty, sunlight pouring in, creating a dusty ray across it. My fingers tightened around the plastic, and I drew the tray into the ache in my belly.
Number seven-million-four-hundred-thousand and ninety-three.
With a loud silence, I lowered the tray and took a seat. Staring out the window, I took it all in. The weather was changing, and the beauty of it was something you could almost feel. Spring always gave me the impression it’d bring with it a happier time. It felt promising, like a chance to rebirth and start anew.
A few months ago, I couldn’t wait for these days—to enjoy the outdoors with Blake, lazing beneath Bertha and staring up at her new hair swaying in a gentle breeze. Our fingers entwined while he drew circles on the palm of my hand with his thumb over and over. Picnics and early morning kisses.
A bluebird perched itself on the small windowsill and cocked its head, staring at me. He was so beautiful and so far from home in the big city. I wondered what he was doing here. His eyes studied me, almost seeming to convey concern if that were possible. Sunlight played on his beautiful feathers, and I fumbled, trying to find my phone to take a picture without taking my eyes off his for fear he’d fly away. I didn’t want to miss getting a shot at one of those beautiful moments.
Number seven-million-four-hundred-thousand and ninety-four.
My fingers tripped around in my bag as I stayed focused on the tiny animal when the distinct sound of a click rang in my ear. My hand froze, and my body stiffened, the hairs on my arms shooting to attention all at once while bending to the left of me. Toward where I knew, without a doubt, he was sitting.
The blood drained from my face, taking my belly with it.
The bird flew away.
“Hi,” I whispered without turning to see him. I didn’t need confirmation of his presence.
“Hello.” The smooth, familiar tone of his voice sent a fissure down my heart.
I closed my eyes, swallowing down a lumpy burn, my eyes turning hot with unwanted tears. I fought past the knot. “He made me think of you. That shot was too beautiful to miss. I’m glad you got it.”
“I didn’t take a picture of the bird.” His clipped tone stilled my heart, and I stiffened.
“Oh.”
We sat in silence for a while, comfort seeming to fall over our closeness while at the same time quietly breaking because of the tiny distance that still remained. Though small in proximity, it was as wide as a canyon in reality—and we could feel it. Like a giant, empty bubble between us. He might as well have been states away, rather than a foot behind me.
I finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry about the other day. I wasn’t thinking about how hard all this is on you. It was selfish of me.”
“It was,” Blake’s tone was short, “but I’m sorry for the way I reacted. You reached out, and I pushed you away, and I shouldn’t have. I wasn’t ready. I can’t control what this does to me. That day it was just . . .” His words drifted off before coming back lower, but with clarity laced through them. “That was a bad day.” His aura seemed to deflate, and the air around us softened.
A heat traveled up my spine, and I knew he’d settled himself closer. I took a deep inhale, my body desperately searching, to draw a little bit of him inside and get a small fix of the drug it’d been craving. A faint wisp of Blake-infused air met my nostrils, and I pulled it in sharply through parted lips, my tongue dancing on that small taste.
“I miss you.” The words tumbled from my mouth before I could catch them. But I did. God help me, I missed him so damn much.
“Not as much as I miss you, Eva.”
Eva.
Not Angel.
That name knocked the wind out of me, the ache I heard when he said it practically bringing me to my knees. It didn’t sound right leaving his mouth.
When silence ballooned once again, I stated again on a quiet sigh, “I really miss you.”
Then he was on me.
Fire met my back as he pressed his chest there, his hands cupping my shoulders as he buried his nose in my hair. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it, I’m sorry. You can pretend I didn’t touch you after, but I can’t just sit here and not feel you.” His voice cracked with his confession. “I’m not strong enough. God damn it, Angel, I’m not strong enough.”
I felt the weight of him crush against me, and I wrapped my arms around my middle, my fingertips gripping onto his shirt behind me to hold him close as I fell forward with quiet sobs.
“What are you doing to us?” The plea in his voice was gut-wrenching.
The tears falling back down my throat burned so damn bad, too bad to allow a response.
“I know you came to see me that night,” he breathed into the wisps of hair falling around my ear. “I felt you there. I could never not feel you there.” The beats of his heart massaged my back in skipping little thumps. “That’s why I freaked out that day in class. I thought you were coming back to me that night and then you disappeared again. Same like you always do,” he trailed off.
“I tried. I’ve been trying so damn hard to stay away, but it's too much sometimes. That night . . . I needed to say goodbye.” My voice was so soft, I wasn’t sure if I’d spoken at all.
He stilled, and I felt his forehead rest on the back of my neck. “Goodbye?” he repeated, emotion thick in his throat.
“Yes. Properly. I never got to say goodbye properly.” I sniffled, angling my head toward him.
“And were you able to?” He continued to speak from behind me, his voice wrought with purpose. “Were you able to say goodbye to me, Angel?” His weight left my back, and a chill slithered into its place.
Never.
I stiffened as my mind instinctively floated to the memory of the photo, the one on his bedside table. Of Amanda. I sat upright, forging strength. “I started to, but then I saw her. Next to your bed. And it was too much to handle.”
“Eva, it’s—”
“It’s okay. You don’t owe me an explanation. I’m glad someone can bring you joy. That’s all I ever wanted for you.” I hugged myself, rubbing the tops of my arms. “Coming to you that night was wrong of me. Coming to you in class was, too. I just can’t help it sometimes.”
His finger met the bone at the top of my spine and began to trail its way down slowly over each of the nubs. “Your body . . . It looks so different. Are you okay?” His voice was soft and distracted as he ignored everything I’d said. “I worry about you.”
I curled in marginally, protecting myself, even though my body reeled from his touch—that one point of contact like a lit poker to my skin. And as a moth draws to a flame, I skidded toward it, rather than skirting away. “I don’t want you to worry about me.”
That was only a partial truth.
I walked away to spare him of having to worry about me, but the truth was, having him here, feeling his concern for me, felt good. Like my favorite cozy blanket that I had just found buried in an old closet, its smell tainted with a settled film, but still there deep within its woven threads. I shook off the feeling of wanting to grab his arms and entwine them back around me, putting his needs before my own, the way it should be. “That’s why I walked away in the first place. I want you to be happy. Let her make you happy.”
He ignored that, too. “What happened to you?” he coaxed gently, his voice soft and supple like warm chocolate. “That day. What happened to you? Will you tell me now?” He continued his slow progression down each of my vertebrae, and I sat in silence, gnawing at the inside of my cheek.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to open up to him and finally clear the air between us. Already just having him so close to me, I was starting to feel a bit less crumbly. The selfish bitch inside scratched at me to be set free. Wanted me to hand him my troubles once again and allow him to fix them. But my love for him knocked that bitch aside.
Because Blake was not the Blake I remembered.
Blake was no longer strong enough to handle both his own burdens and mine as well. Blake was crumbly now, too. He needed someone to shelter him. So even if he didn’t understand, even if it made me seem heartless or like I didn’t want him, we had to stay apart. For now.
I concentrated on the feel of his fingertip roaming my back, the comfort of his support. With each brush, I could sense how badly he wanted to know. And with each swipe, I knew just how badly I wanted him to. I closed my eyes, handing over a piece. “I got hurt again,” I whispered.
His finger stopped moving and pressed into me a bit roughly. Although I couldn’t see him, the air was so tense that I knew he was chomping down on his jaw, trying to work through what to do with that.
Instead of the response I’d been waiting for, Blake stood and collected our belongings before taking my small hand in his. “Come with me.”
I didn't second guess my reaction to concede to his wish. Hand in hand, and with no words spoken between us, I allowed him to lead me straight to the place where we had originally opened up to one another.
Bertha.
She was so enormous. So proud. And, if I wasn’t mistaken—happy? Yes, she looked happy. I allowed a small grin and looked up at her, nodding once. She seemed to glance down, welcoming me back.
Blake laid down on the grass and lightly tapped beside him, asking me to join him. I wasn’t sure I could do it—lay beside him so close and not touch him, so I compromised. I laid in the opposite direction, my face aligned with his and rested my hands on my stomach, gazing up through Bertha’s thick mane. Blake exhaled a deep breath beside me, as though it was the first time he’d breathed in months, and I thought that that was exactly what this felt like.
Breath.
Air.
If I turned my head, I knew I’d meet his blue diamond eyes. I felt them piercing into me, noticed the heat they sent into my pores. My skin was waking up, welcoming the familiar heat of his gaze the way a flower blooms at the start of Spring. Pieces that had been dead for so long were now buzzing and feeling, as though they might live again.
Live me.
Shhhh—I hushed that thought. It was too soon to go there.
Instead, my mind drifted to the box of forget-me-nots that Blake had left on my balcony. I now understood what it would feel like to regrow. To feel the thrum of life inside parts that were once dead.
In life, there are second chances.
I continued to look up through Bertha’s branches, unable to face those eyes in this proximity, and I felt his gaze leave my skin as he did the same.
Then the air hardened.
“Who hurt you?” Blake’s voice was rigid.
My newfound breaths caught in my throat and I tried to figure out how I’d get around this. How I’d tell him without telling him. It was time he knew the truth, but how much could I actually get away with and still protect him?
“It’s someone very close to me. Very close to my family.”
If the air had been thick between us before, it somehow became even more swollen, almost ceasing to exist, even in this open space. There was no movement beside me. I wanted to reach out and place my hand on Blake’s chest and remind him to breathe.
“Who, Angel? Talk to me.”
Dirt invaded my fingernails as I dug them into the grass. Damon's seething hatred of me that day flashed before my eyes—his teeth bared, his bloodshot eyes. I inhaled a deep, shuddered breath. “I can’t say who. I want to, and I promise I will. Just not yet.”
The air slackened, and Blake let out a large exhale, making me aware of how closely he was hanging onto my every word.
“You can trust me.” His compassionate tone, soaked in comfort, massaged the delicate situation, but still urged me to have faith in his words. “Don’t you know that yet?”
With my life. It was that bastard I didn’t trust. He would push the situation into something that would compromise Blake, and I wouldn’t have that happen. “Of course. My doubt was never in you. But I need to do this the right way. For both of us. Do you trust me?”
Blake remained silent, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t think I needed the reassurance of a yes or if he didn’t want to lie. I didn’t want to pressure him one way or the other, so I took away the moment.
“When the time is right, I promise I will tell you. I just . . . not yet, okay?”
The air was stagnant and stiff before it seemed to melt as Blake relented. “What happened then? Can you tell me what happened?” he probed, grasping for whatever glimpse I could give him.
“I went to see Abby that day.” I sucked in a deep breath. “I went to see Abby . . . and he was there.” I turned my head and finally looked in Blake’s direction. “And she wasn’t.”
Even the hair that fell onto the grass behind his head seemed to stiffen. His air cut off again, and his Adam’s apple rode a tense line inside his throat. He turned his head and our eyes finally locked. So much concern rested there, the purple circles under his eyes showcasing nights filled with worry. I wanted to reach out and touch him, wipe his heartbreak away, but my hands were glued to my sides. Instead, I allowed my gaze to touch all the parts my fingers couldn’t. His plump lips that were slightly parted, permitting sharp gasps to both enter and retreat as he seemed to be working over my features with the same intensity. His high cheekbones and strong jawline. He was undoubtedly the most magnificent thing I had ever laid eyes on. I’d forgotten how beautiful he was. The bright light of the new spring sun danced along his features, highlighting each incredibly striking piece.
My Blake.
But he was no longer mine.
A sheath of regret blanketed me, and I fought to keep tears tucked into their ducts. I wanted to take it all in, unsure I’d ever get another opportunity like this. We were both so volatile. So back and forth with our emotions.
He turned on his side and tucked his hands underneath his face, meeting me head on. Without thought, I did the same.
“Are you okay now?” He searched me for the truth.
I wasn’t sure what okay was anymore, but I was better. “Okay as I can be for the moment. I’ll never be perfect, but I’m getting there.”
A humph escaped his lips in a hushed scoff and his eyes locked on mine. “You couldn’t be more perfect if you tried.”
Wordless, we stayed here, suspended in time where what-ifs and what-might-have-beens danced around us, mingling with unanswered questions and the fears of the what-can-nots. It was both awkward and familiar, uncomfortable yet the most comforting place I’d been in months. My fingers twitched, wanting to touch him. My lips dried, needing to be coated with his. My heart bled in my chest, begging in agony for me to get closer to him as my breaths danced in spurts from my mouth.
Blake brought a pair of shaky fingers to my lips, and they parted, sucking in a gulp of air that tasted like his skin. His eyes told so much—longing I never knew possible was screaming from their depths. My eyelids drifted closed as he outlined the curves of my mouth. He rested the palm of his hand on my cheek and delicately stroked the bone beneath it.
“Angel?”
“Yes?” I answered, breathless. I couldn’t open my eyes for fear that this moment would evaporate, that one of us would think better of it and run away.
His breath was hot against my lips, moisture from the warmth skimming the supple skin. “Don’t move.”
I sucked in one final breath as his mouth covered mine. Light exploded in blinding stars as everything that had ever been right in the world slammed into me with his taste. His love. What I had missed for so long penetrating my senses in a rush of Blake. I nearly crumbled as my chest concaved under the rush of air that left me, the feeling of being home barreling into me—overwhelming and glorious and all spiraled into one man, one heart, one soul that was the perfect match for my own. Hot prickles swarmed the corners of my eyes, but I choked down the sentiment and soaked in the Blake.
He kissed me softly at first, as though he was testing whether or not he could go through with it, learning my mouth once again. I didn’t move. I couldn't. I merely breathed as much of him into my lungs as I could, savoring his sweetness. Still upside down, his tongue dipped into my mouth with a groan, the pad skimming along the top of mine, and I fell into a dazed, sated, and numb abyss where there was only him and me.
A sense of comfort washed over me, relaxing any tension my body was harboring in his absence.
No pain.
No sorrow.
No regret.
Just love. Undying love.
He continued to kiss me, still slow and unsure, as though he was scared if he was pressing too hard and I would realize what was happening and end it.
But I couldn’t.
His hand moved, tangling in my hair, and the breaths that he breathed into me began to quicken. I knew then what was happening to him because it was happening to me as well. The weight being placed on my chest was all-consuming. Even if this didn't end in us, I needed to feel as much of it as possible.
Without breaking the connection of our mouths, I lifted and spun myself so I was horizontal with him and could enjoy him properly. One of his hands fisted the hair behind my head while the other stayed at my cheek, and we indulged in each other, licking and sucking and drinking in each other's aura. His hands skimmed down my sides before coming up beneath my arms and tugging, bringing me on top of him. My pieces sunk into his, each crevice fitting like a puzzle as our hearts beat against one another's. They had missed each other. I could tell by the way they aligned, landing in perfect sync to beat the other’s drum. It was a rhythm unique to them as they chased each other on high and low waves.
I finally parted our mouths and sat up, scared that I was falling too deep and wouldn’t be able to dig myself out again. We both stared at each other, our chests heaving in tandem. I brought my fingers up and touched my lips, swollen with Blake as tears pooled in my eyes.
“Angel . . .” Blake sat up and snaked his hand around the back of my neck. “Stay with me.”
Somehow I knew he didn’t mean physically. He could probably see what I was feeling. Knowing that this couldn’t happen.
“Blake—” My voice cracked.
“She’s just a friend.”
“What?” My breath trapped in my throat.
“Marybeth. I know you saw her picture that night and she’s just a friend. She’s my partner in the photography classes you set me up with. She knows all about you, and she means nothing to me.”
Marybeth? I thought her name was Amanda. Didn’t matter now. I closed my eyes as relief sunk in.
In a voice so small I almost missed it, Blake added, “Don’t run.”
I opened my eyes and trained them on his sparkling blue irises, the bend between them sending an aching ball into my stomach. “I won’t.” I shook my head, promising both him and myself. “I'm not. But we can’t do this. Not yet. I’m not ready yet.” They were words I was so sick of throwing at him, but Jace was right. Blake deserved a whole woman, and I was close—so close, but still not where I needed to be.
Blake seemed to find what he searched for in my eyes because his shoulders relaxed, his features calming. Always patient, the corner of his mouth rose in a half-hearted smile. “Whatever you need.” Those words were a horrible reminder of the day that he had walked out of my life and I didn’t like the sour they created in the back of my throat.
“I’m sorry.” I hung my head. No truer words were ever spoken, but if I wanted to be fair to him, and to me, I had to do this.
“So am I.” The defeat in his eyes, the disappointment in his tone spoke more than his words even though he tried to mask it. “I’m sorry that you won’t let me fix this for you.”
I cupped his face, willing him to see past this denial to my growing strength, to the truth in my heart. “I wish you could, but it’s up to me. When I give myself to you again, I want you to have someone that’s whole, not be picking through my fragments.” I rubbed my thumb along his cheekbone, and his eyes drifted shut.
He took my hand in his and brought the inside of my wrist to his lips. Then my always poetic Blake let the most beautiful words caress the delicate skin. “I wouldn’t care if you were particles of dust scattered in grains of sand. I’d still fix you.” His eyes trained on mine, stealing my breath. He laced our fingers and rested our hands between our laps with a sigh. “But, for you, I’ll wait. Because what just happened reminded me what having air feels like, and I’m not so sure I could go back to suffocating anymore, Angel. I can’t bear the thought of it.”
I threw my arms around his neck and crushed him tight to me, squeezing. For the yesterdays lost and the tomorrows I wasn’t sure we would see, I held him for today and hoped it’d be for eternity.