to the light streaming in through the window, and I’m greeted by emerald irises.
I’d have forgotten where I was if it wasn’t for the beauty locked in on me and me alone.
I feel the sensation of her fingers in my hair. She’s on an elbow, looking down at me, massages my scalp with her nails. A soft, comforting feeling. Her stare melts into me. She’s gazing at me as if I can’t see her, as if her expression is entirely unknown to her. But I see it. She looks a little nervous, anxious, worried even.
“Babygirl,” I groan in my cracked morning tone, pulling her down next to me again, wrapping an arm around her back until she’s face to face with me. “What’s wrong?”
She sighs, looking down at my chest, running her finger along the words there, reading the tattoos as she contemplates my questions. “Nothing, really.”
My heart feels the familiar ache. In the light of day, how do the words “I love you” stand? Is she regretting anything? Did the intensity of the experience force her into expressing feelings she’s not ready for? It all wears on me.
“Tell me your thoughts, sweetheart. What are you feeling?”
Her smile returns, and her eyebrows raise. “Terrified,” she admits, chuckling and shaking her head.
“Me too,” I admit, being completely and totally honest. “And that’s okay. I think it’s natural to feel that. It’s all so new to both of us.”
I place a kiss on her forehead, pulling her into a hug until I can feel her skin against mine again. I place my chin on top of her head as my heart and hers race together. We’re both so scared of the changes happening, terrified of losing something we’ve only just found. It’s new, it’s raw, it’s so fucking real.
“You know how people hate the smell of cigarette smoke, but if you’re a real smoker, you just kinda find yourself oddly liking it?”
Here she goes with her randomness again. I fucking love it.
“I’m hoping there’s a point to this statement, and the point not being that I smell.”
She laughs into my neck, the feeling of her breath against my skin sending an electrical current from the point of contact to the pit of my gut.
“No, you actually smell like soap,” she says before sniffing me, her little messy bun tickling my neck. “Soap and sex.”
“I should trademark that,” I reply, running a few of my fingers along her spine.
Her skin is so soft and smooth, and I always find myself unable to stop touching it. Intricate little circles; I’m continuously drawing with my fingers on the softness.
“What I was trying to say was that smokers don’t mind the smell because it becomes them. The carcinogenic residue that cigarettes leave behind infiltrates into your system. It’s in your lungs, in your blood, in your skin. It becomes a part of you from the inside out, and you begin to love it, even though you know it’s not supposed to be a part of you.”
I wait for her to continue, wondering where this is going.
“Basically, what I’m trying to say is…you’ve become like cancer.”
I pause with my mouth open, about to say something, before a grin takes over my expression.
“Jesus, Han. That’s morbidly romantic,” I say, my statement dripping with sarcasm.
She laughs into my chest again before pulling back enough to look me in my eyes. We’re both just smiling at each other, and I wish I could bottle this moment in time, pulling it out every chance I got.
“I despised it in the beginning because it was unfamiliar and felt foreign. Deadly even. But now…now you’ve become such a part of me, I don’t think I could go on without it.” Her eyes pinch in the corners as she swallows, the pain in her sentence evident. “I hate that I understand it now.”
Her last sentence confuses me. I drag my thumb along her lip, studying it while attempting to not look as confused as I feel. “Understand what?”
She shakes her head as if to tell me not to ask. The question, apparently off limits.
“You’re my cancer, Kai. You’re my disease. Spreading throughout me, filling my lungs, infiltrating my heart, seeping from my pores…” Her breath catches. “You’re everywhere.”
My heart squeezes in my chest when tears fall down her cheeks. She’s having such a difficult time trying to love. It’s as if she sees love as a toxic need, powerful enough with the potential to kill. I mean, Jesus, she compared it to cancer.
“Well, do you want radiation? I mean, I’m sure we can eradicate this disease before it’s too far gone,” I joke, raising my brows humorously as I rub her nose with mine. She grins briefly before it falls from her face.
“You’ve already spread to every part of me. Nothing’s untouched. The pain of needing you surpasses the need to live.”
She presses her lips to mine immediately after the words escape her, leaving me attempting to mull them over. I think of her past, her mother, and everything she’s potentially seen, curious as to the seriousness of that sentence. It’s impossible though, because the minute her tongue slips into my mouth, I’m in her world, at her mercy again, unable to do anything other than love her physically.
We stayed in bed, just kissing one another all morning. Hands exploring every inch of each other, yet nothing escalated. We just silently communicated our need for one another through our lips and tongues until I finally needed to leave to meet Hawke at one of the properties.
I entered the kitchen after showering, feeling lucky that I had extra clothes in my car to change into. Spotting Han with her back turned towards me standing near the counter, I approach her with every intention of wrapping my arms around her from behind. That intention is ripped from me when she turns to face me first.
Her eyes are red, her face white as hell as she holds my phone out to me.
My phone.
Opened on a text message to Tarah.
The ones I thought I deleted.
No. No. No.
My stomach drops and my chest feels as if it’s caving in.
“Are you…you’re still seeing her?” Han asks, the look on her face immediately breaking me in two.
My heart is racing and I’m on the verge of a panic attack. This can’t happen. Not to her.
I look at the messages. I successfully deleted the first one, but what remains is the last two.
Of course. Didn’t think you’d be ready for more. Meet me?
Text me time and place.
Followed by a new one from her I’d yet to check that appears to have come this morning, which is why Han probably saw it light up.
Come over anytime you’re done doing whoever else is lamer than me.
I run my hands down my face, groaning into them. It looks so much worse than what it is. Fuck, it looks so fucking horrible.
“No. Fuck no, I’m not seeing her.” I run a hand through my hair and look at the ceiling. “It’s probably some old shit.”
I don’t know why I said that. It’s a lie. I know it’s not old shit, but I’m panicking because it looks like I’m fucking around with Tarah on the side, which is so far from the truth.
“Kai, this is from last night. Don’t fucking lie to me!” she yells before throwing my phone across the room.
Her eyes rim with redness, the pain present taking away from her normal softness. I can literally feel her coming apart. The kind of coming apart you dread. The kind of coming apart you can’t bring back together.
“Baby, stop.” I reach out for her, and she pulls away from me immediately. “I can explain this.”
“How could you do this to me?” she asks, tears falling out of her eyes as she stares at the floor beside me, her mouth hanging open as if breathing isn’t something she’s ever had to work so hard to do.
“I tried to delete it before I came up because I didn’t want you to think it was something it wasn’t.”
I say it, then literally slap my hand to my face. I’m a fucking idiot who needs to put his foot is his goddamn mouth. She stares at me in disbelief at my admission.
“You tried to delete it in case I’d find it?” Her voice is weak.
“No, I just…I meant—”
“Oh my God,” she says breathlessly, resting the back of her hand against her head and looking to the ground as if it can somehow save her. “I can’t believe myself. I’m so stupid.”
I hate that she’s having a conversation with herself. Suddenly I feel pushed to the curb.
“Goddammit Han!” I yell, grabbing her forearms and shaking her. “I’m not fucking seeing her! I hate that fake bitch. Don’t fall back over something you don’t understand.”
She swallows, blinking for the first time in what seems like forever, her brows knitting painfully together as she closes those eyes I need to see to make me feel whole again.
“Explain it then,” she says before opening her eyes to face me. “I’m giving you an opportunity, which is more than I should give, considering the context.”
My lips part, and I don’t know how to start. Telling her I’m trying to get more drugs from Tarah to determine what’s in the substance that’s taken me down a notch in the totem pole as one of the biggest and baddest drug dealers on the coast just doesn’t flow right. Especially since our conversation about me with drugs became such a sore spot for her. I can’t admit the depths of what I’m into with Dario.
Her brows raise as I open my mouth wider, but no words come out.
“Jesus, fuck,” she whispers, and I can hear her heart breaking into pieces.
A sob leaves her chest, but as quickly as it falls, she tucks it back in, swallowing it away.
“Leave,” she says in a voice that’s entirely too calm for my liking as she heads towards the door. “Just leave.”
“No,” I say, immediately, shaking my head, stalking back towards her.
“Leave!” she screams, walking backwards, away from me.
“No! I’m not leaving. I’m not fucking Tarah. I’m not involved with anyone in that regard. It’s only you, it’s only ever been you.”
I push up against her, holding her to me again as her back hits the wall. The disgusted look on her face reaches me as she looks up and says, “That’s not true. You’ve slept with other people since we’ve hooked up. And not that it really matters, but it just shows you’re lying again.”
My face distorts because unfortunately for me, it’s true. I slept with that blonde chick at Bran’s in the bathroom, and the other chick who fucked me for coke in the backseat of my car. Both of which technically happened after LSD night, our first time.
She looks past me again, unable to keep her eyes on me. It tears through my heart. Her shaking hands raise up between us, before she shoves me back away from her.
“Don’t.” My voice cracks. “Don’t, please Johanna, it’s not what you think. I need you to trust me.”
I try to grab for her again, but she pulls her arm away from me, clutching it to her chest like the idea of me burns her. I just need to fucking touch her.
She laughs. “Trust you?” She scoffs. “I trusted you last night. That was my first mistake. My second was falling for you. I won’t let my third be letting another fuckboy walk all over me.”
“Let me explain,” I say immediately, holding my hands up, trying to calm her. “It’s not Tarah, it’s the drugs. I wanted drugs.”
She gives me a blank, emotionless stare, tipping her head to the side.
“This is about drugs, Kai?” she asks, sounding entirely suspicious, not believing me at all. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I nod.
“Kai?” she asks, waiting for my response with her brows raised.
“Yeah?” I answer cautiously.
“You’re a drug dealer.” Her words hit me like a ton of bricks. “I may look pretty to you, but I assure you I’m not that fucking stupid.”
I blow air through my lips, placing my hands on my head again, pulling at the roots of my still damp hair. I don’t know how to fix this, how to come back from it.
“Just know that it has nothing to do with what’s going on here between us. I’ve never been more serious about anyone before in my life. You think I’d fuck that up?” I pull at the collar of my shirt, fisting the material with white knuckles, unsure of what to do with this rage I’m feeling over my loss of control in this situation. “You own me, you know this!”
Blinking away the emotion, I see her sigh and have the tiniest hope I’m breaking in.
“Johanna, know that I love you. Know that I won’t hurt you. Trust my heart.” I pound my fist into my chest as her tears spill over again. “You know my heart.”
She looks down at the floor again, her jaw tightening as I press myself against her, pinning her hips back against the wall. I wrap my hands around the sides of her neck and jaw, forcing her to face me.
“Baby, please. I’d never let this go. Not over a stupid fuck, not over a fucking pill…nothing.”
Looking at me with unsure eyes, she doesn’t pull away.
“We are the same, Han. Me and you. We need each other,” I whisper against her lips.
She sucks in a shaky breath, breathing it out while looking down.
“Don’t make me an idiot, Kai. Don’t let me become that person again. Please. Not now,” she begs in a weak voice. A voice so unlike her. “Not after everything.”
She wants to believe me. She desperately wants to believe she isn’t making the biggest mistake of her life by letting someone in again. I get that. I feel it in the way her entire body is shaking, the way her bottom lip trembles in my hands. She can’t take one more break. She’ll crumble into nothing before me. There won’t even be pieces left to fix.
“I would never,” I promise her, emphasizing each word as I stare into her.
Her eyes study mine, analyzing them for the slightest detection of falsehood, anything to prove I’m not being honest with her guarded heart.
“Come here,” I whisper, pulling her into my arms where it’s safe.
Picking her up, I take her over to the kitchen. I place her on the counter, wrapping her legs around my hips as her arms find their way around my neck where they belong. My hand slides up behind her neck, sifting my fingers through her hair, gripping onto her, pressing her into me.
She sighs against me, her lips against the skin of my neck. I feel her breaths and wonder about the silent thoughts going through her head. Does she believe me? Does she trust me?
After holding her for a moment, I lean back to look down at her, combing her hair back with my hands before kissing the little spot on her forehead repeatedly where her stress shows.
I can feel my heart calming down a bit, my chest against hers again as our heads rest together, her eyes still cast downwards. But her heart is oddly calm now. In fact, her breathing isn’t what it was just a minute ago, not to mention her shaking has stopped. I’d love to believe I have that effect on her just as she does me, but I know in that sick part of my stomach, that isn’t it.
Pulling back from her slightly, I hold her face in my hands again, taking in her appearance as if I could read her thoughts.
But I see it like the way a sun sets into darkness. Slowly, then all at once. The tiny flame I’d provided, hoping to ignite her fire, has dimmed. There’s a coldness in her gaze, almost as if the life in the eyes I saw this morning has faded along with that sun into the night.
Her darkness is back, and just as quickly as I’d fucked up after promising her the idea of us, it appears her past found a way to snuff it out.
