Page 164 of Split or Swallow

It was as if someone were splitting her head in two with a blunt ax. The sensation was so strong that she screamed, lurching away from Leo and curling herself into a ball.

“Tem? What is it? Tem!”

But Tem couldn’t answer. There were no words to describe the torture overtaking her mind. She felt nothing but torment, heard nothing but a single, anguished cry, repeated over and over into eternity, never-ending, as bottomless as the ocean. It was indescribable pain, and she didn’t even know whether it was hers.

“Tem,” Leo touched her shoulder. The pain worsened.

“Caspen,” it was all she could manage to say. “He’s here.”

“Where?” Leo asked, bewildered.

Tem pointed at her head. The pain was growing, shutting everything else out.

“He’s in your mind?”

But Tem couldn’t reply. The pain was too excruciating for her to form a single thought. Her head was a maelstrom of grief, anger, and bitter jealousy, each emotion so strong she felt as if she were being run through with a knife.

“Tem, look at me. Tem!”

Leo was calling her. He was calling her, and she couldn’t answer.

Her head was filled with a montage of her time with Caspen. She saw the moment they met in the cave, when she asked him to undress. There was their first kiss, from his perspective, as he wove his fingers into her hair and pulled her against his lips. She saw the time he almost transitioned. She saw him heal her after Jonathan. She watched as they fucked in his chambers for the first time, wild and desperate, two people who could finally be together without restraint. How long have you loved me? she’d whispered just last night. Far longer than you have loved me, he’d whispered back. Tem couldn’t take any more. She could barely breathe. But she drew on every ounce of strength she had left to send a single word down the fractured corridor of their minds:

Stop.

As suddenly as the pain had come, it was gone. The pressure on her head finally released as their connection broke, shattering into a thousand shards of glass. Tem gasped in equal parts shock and relief, the sudden absence of agony nearly agony in itself.

“Tem? Tem.”

Leo was still saying her name. She had no idea how much time had passed—no idea what she had screamed while Caspen was in her head. She looked up into his terrified eyes.

“Leo,” she whispered.

“I’m here,” he held her face in his palms. “What can I do?”

But Tem couldn’t speak. Instead, she began to cry.

Leo pulled her tightly into his arms as her shoulders shook. She sobbed against his skin, not bothering to hold back her tears, not bothering to pretend she didn’t feel every ounce of despair that Caspen felt. She was so tired of him shutting her out—of only letting her in when it was convenient for him—of making her feel like she was under his control. Tem wanted to think for herself, act for herself. How could she have a say in her future when she couldn’t even accept her own propos⁠al? Nothing was simple with Caspen; nothing was straightforward. It never had been. She resented him for driving her into Leo’s arms, and she hated how much solace she had found in them.

Eventually, her sobs ceased.

They lay quietly, Tem’s head resting on Leo’s bare chest, his arms wrapped around her, their legs intertwined. Leo drew gentle shapes on her skin, his fingers brushing up and down her arm in slow, comforting strokes. Every few minutes, he kissed her on the top of her head.

“I’m sorry, Leo,” Tem whispered eventually. Her voice was hoarse.

His fingers stopped.

“For what?”

“That we didn’t…that I couldn’t…”

He shook his head, his fingers resuming their journey.

“I don’t mind, Tem,” he said quietly. “I’ll take what I can get.”

His words gutted her. They hurt even more coming from Leo, who somehow always had to take what he could get when it came to Tem. He received what attention she could spare; he took what affection she would give him. Leo never got all of her, and he never complained. He took what he could get, even when it was never enough. It was yet another reminder to Tem that giving half of herself to two people wasn’t sustainable. Something would have to break. She hoped it wouldn’t be her.

“It may happen again,” she said.