AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Corvin spreads his fingers to encapsulate my cheek and jaw, the motions on my skin being committed to memory because I have the sinking feeling this might be the last time we touch.
Take it back. Tell him you want him. Tell him the truth.
“Then, this is the end for now, sweetheart.”
He takes my face in both his hands and kisses me like the world is disappearing. Slipping through his fingers. Like that world is me.
It tastes like heartbreak.
Corvin Morales makes love to me every night for a week. He gives it to me slow and sweet, and when I can’t take it anymore he rails me until the tree house creaks.
My body is abused by loving touches and rough hands. Every time I want to sob out the words captured in my chest, but if I make them true, there’s no letting him go. No letting him out of my web of pain.
It’ll slowly entangle us both until the venom sets in and all the love we supposedly have is gone.
After the week, I make a call to Valco and plan to spend the rest of the break with him and Vulture.
“I should lock you in the tree house until you come to your senses,” Corvin says as he plops down beside me on the sidewalk where I’m waiting on my Lyft.
“Kinky. Am I naked in this scenario?”
He slips an arm around my waist, and I rest my head on his shoulder.
“You’re naked in every scenario.”
There’s no hostility between us, and he’s as affectionate as he’s always been with me, but I know when I drive off tonight that will be the end.
The Corvin Morales who gives me infinite amounts of love and patience will have to shut this part of himself off until the wound heals. The one I dug in his chest.
But it’s superficial when it could have ended with an amputation.
“When is our next class?” I ask, and the quiet I’m met with tells me Corvin knows what I’m really asking.
“I’ll be busy with RA duties for a little while. You could give running it on your own a go?” He smiles sadly and twists a lock of my hair around his finger. “Or we can hold off and pick up when I’m ready.”
If he’s ever ready.
I wouldn’t want to spend prolonged amounts of time with someone who broke my heart. But then again, Corvin’s always been a better person than I am.
A car pulls around the corner matching the description in my app, and I take one last moment to soak in the feel of Corvin’s touch around me.
Stay, the voice whispers one last time, but it’s faint and far away.
The car comes to a stop, I stand, and then shiver as the warmth falls away. I toss my bag into the back seat and go to climb in.
No goodbyes. I’d just betray my aching heart.
“Shiloh.” I stop with the door halfway closed to see Corvin standing with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his lips. “I love you. No matter what, you deserve to have that.”
Without a response—because if I speak, I’ll cry—I close the door, and the sound reverberates in my chest.
Whatever happened between Corvin and I this semester, it’s done. Gone with the wind.
But just like those other two nights—the assault and the accident—it’s another thread, no matter how long and frayed, that ties us together.
“You look rough,” Valco says as I throw my bag down on the floor and face plant on the couch. It smells like rum.
“Six hours in a stuffy car that took all of the money I need to save for my meds will do that to you.”
