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“Are you really here?” I mutter, shaking my head.
“Yes,” she replies.
“But why?” I can barely utter the words.
“Because …” She licks her lips. “I didn’t have the chance to say thank you.” She swallows. “For the address. And the bear.”
I smile softly. “You don’t have to. I don’t need a thank you,” I reply. “I don’t even deserve it.”
“Yes, you do,” she says, taking another step. “You gave them to me out of your own free will. I didn’t ask you to, and you still gave the address to me without asking for anything in return.”
“Because I want you to be happy,” I say.
“I know,” she says, nodding. “But—”
“Don’t,” I interrupt.
I don’t want her to say this because she feels like she needs to or because she thinks I’m unhappy. I’m not. I’m happy as long as she is, and I refuse to give in to my weakness. “You don’t have to do this,” I say.
“But I want to,” she says.
“You don’t have to forgive me. You don’t have to thank me. I know what I did. And I know I can never give back what I took from you.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” she says.
“Then why are you?” My heart feels heavy. I’m so goddamn close to bursting. I want to shout, scream, punch holes in the walls … and then kiss her. Madly. Deeply.
But I force myself to stay put. To stay where I’m supposed to be … away from her.
I’ll only ruin her.
“I realized something when I was working at Roy’s,” she says, her eyes tearing up. “No matter how much I hate you for what you did to me, for what happened to my mother … I can’t stop wanting you either.”
My knees buckle, and I fall to the floor. I can’t even look her in the eyes. Can’t bear the weight that’s on my shoulders any longer.
“Even though you caused all the pain and misery in my life, you didn’t do it to hurt me.”
“But I did …” I growl, planting my hands firmly on the floor so I don’t use them to get back up on my feet again.
“You didn’t know what my mother would do,” she says.
“But I could’ve stopped her!”
“Guilt eats you up. I can sense it.” She steps even closer. “Is that why you gave me freedom? Because it killed you to see me in pain, knowing you were the cause?”
“Yes.” Just admitting it feels painful. That single word rolling off my tongue feels like an ocean wave crashing into me.
“You tried to do anything you could to make things up to me,” she says. She’s right in front of me now. I could almost touch her, but I refuse to let myself. “You just wanted to prove to yourself that you weren’t a bad man, even after everything you did.”
“I failed,” I say.
Suddenly, she grabs my face and lifts it, forcing me to look at her. To gaze at all the beauty she is … and how little of it I deserve.
“In your twisted little way, you wanted to make the world better. You wanted it to be better for me.” Her warm hands cupping my face are like those of an angel. “And the longer I thought about it, the less I could stop wanting to come back here.”
“I can’t give you what you need,” I mutter.
“Yes, you can. You already did … time and time again.”
“I’m a killer. A monster. Someone who takes and takes without giving back. How could you ever want a man like that?” I say.
“I can’t explain it either. I just know that I do,” she says.
“I can’t change who I am, Syrena.” I grab both her hands and hold them close to my heart, forcing her to feel the real me. “This is it. This is me.”
“And I accept that,” she says without an ounce of regret. “I’m not afraid of you. Not afraid of the monster inside you … because I know he’ll never hurt me.”
My lips part, but I have no words.
“And I forgive you for what you’ve done.”
Her final words unravel me. Unchain my heart and set it free.
And as I raise my head, I fall into her, wrapping my arms so tightly around her body I feel like she’s going to pop. But it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t say a word, so I know she doesn’t mind. And when she places her hand on my back, I can finally breathe.
She’s here in my arms.
She’s here to stay.
Here … Mine.
I grab her face and smash my lips onto hers, not giving a shit about whether it’s wrong or right, or any of that bullshit.
When I kiss her, all the noise in my head seems to disappear.
All that remains is her. It’s always been her.
From the moment I met her to the point when I had to let her go … I knew she was the one. The only one to ever understand what it’s like to feel as though you’re an outsider in your own life. To feel as if you’re an outcast. To want something that’s depraved … And to give in to it anyway, knowing you’ll go to hell for it.
