Page 247 of Breathe Like Hell

Eventually I approached Micah’s house and landed on his back porch. The door wasn’t locked, so I went inside and straight up to his bedroom, seeking the comfort of his bed, his scent, my wings around me like his arms used to be.

CHAPTER SIXTY

MASON

Two Months After

I pushed open Micah’s front door, instantly noticing there was another presence in the dark house.

I walked silently up to his bedroom.

Dakota was lying in his bed, curled up in a little ball on her side, her wings wrapped around her small body. She was crying, her shoulders shaking with weak sobs, her voice so soft and broken. It wasn’t the first time she’d slept like this in his bed. She’d been doing it often the past month.

Her wings were him, the weight of those bones and muscles and feathers the only way either of us would ever be able to hold him again. And now the wings held her, wrapping around her body the same way he did when she slept, comforting her and keeping her safe in a way I couldn’t.

Especially not now as both drowned in our grief, neither able to save the other.

Sometimes we screamed at each other until our voices were hoarse.

Sometimes we didn’t speak for days.

I couldn’t decide which hurt more.

I walked around the side of the bed and knelt next to her face, holding her cheek in my palm, staring at her teary eyes. Her eyelashes were all wet and clumped together, her cheeks flushed, her lips shiny.

She didn’t say anything.

“I love you,” I whispered.

Her expression broke, face scrunching up like everything hurt her, and she reached her arms towards me. I leaned in, tucking her damp face in the crook of my neck.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed.

She shook her head, sniffling, clinging to me tighter.

After a few minutes, I crawled onto the bed behind her, stroking my fingertips lightly over her wings. She seemed to relax when I did it, so I continued, gently tracing her feathers until her breathing evened out and she was asleep again, surrounded by the fading scent of pine trees and rain.

━━━━━

Dakota was mostly quiet as I drove both of us to my apartment, slumped over onto the center console, her backpack on the floor at her feet. It was raining, and the temperature was low enough for the roads to be slightly icy, so all the cars were driving slower than normal.

I pulled into the parking lot and shut off my car, but I didn’t get out right away. Dakota didn’t move either.

We sat together while raindrops pattered on the windshield and the top of the car, dripping down the windows, obscuring the outside world. How am I supposed to keep doing this forever without him? How is she?

More often than I’d ever tell her, I thought about what I’d read in her journal on that terrible morning when she woke up with blood staining her shorts. Ivy. It made me so deeply sad in a way I couldn’t articulate with words. Maybe I hadn’t wanted the baby at first, and even less so because it belonged to Micah, but when I saw that, I felt sick to my stomach.

Some part of her had wanted it.

And she didn’t want to tell me.

I hated how that felt. I wondered if she ever thought about it, if she wished she hadn’t miscarried now. She could’ve still had Micah’s child. But maybe she wouldn’t have wanted to do it without him. I’d never really know the answer to that. I wasn’t going to ask her.

Dakota eventually sat up and gathered her belongings, then pushed out of the car without waiting for me. I hopped out and jogged around to catch up with her as she reached the door to my apartment complex, then opened it for her. We went up the elevator together, then down the hall to my apartment. The door frame remained busted, but it wasn’t really visible from the exterior.

I pushed the door open, and Dakota went directly to my bedroom without a word.

We’d tried to have sex since his death, but it wasn’t good. Neither of us really wanted to do it. It was more of a compulsion than anything, some fleeting attempt at normalcy or connection between us.