Page 281 of Breathe Like Hell

DAKOTA

I dropped onto Micah’s back deck, invisibility shimmering off of me as my wings disappeared and I pushed the door open. He was right inside the kitchen, waiting for me. Immediately, I was scanning his expression, trying to seek out his hidden emotions. Since becoming Sigeian, I’d become more inclined to separate the complexities of emotions painted on the face. Even without using my aspect to reach inside the brain, I could read people better.

Everything about learning how to use my aspect helped me understand Micah, because I now knew more about how he’d experienced the world his entire life.

He stood up from his chair and gently pushed my shoulders to step me back outside onto the deck. I followed him over to the railing near the house, watching him climb on top of it and grab the gutter to pull himself up onto a lower portion of the roof.

“Come up here.” He looked down at me, extending his arm.

“Okay.” A little smile curved up the corners of my mouth, and I climbed onto the railing, then let Micah pull me up with him onto the roof.

We walked up the slanted shingles a bit farther, then sat down together, looking out at the trees lining the back of the lot. The shingles still held a little warmth from the afternoon, but pervasive blueness had claimed the world now, and the gloomy air had turned cool. Beyond the edge of the roof, the pine trees stood shoulder to shoulder, their dark silhouettes swallowing anything within their territory.

The stars were beginning to appear one by one in the void-arc of the sky, scattered between slow-moving clouds. I’d never looked at them the same way since seeing billions of them sprayed across an oxblood sky in Heaven.

Stars contain neon.

My new lifeforce.

“Do you want to talk?” I asked, daring to glance over at Micah. I noticed dried blood on his arms, dark now and flaking off his skin.

The blood was from the box of razor blades in the bathroom, which was another thing I’d learned after his death. Self harm like that was different as an angel than as a human. I knew that. But the base need was the same. He wanted out of his head.

I understand you. I love you.

“Not especially.” He turned his head, his eyes finding mine. His were blue like a sky smothered in clouds, and mine were green like rain-damp ferns or swaying pine trees. All we were missing now was the earth, rich and brown. “I just wanted to breathe out here with you.”

I felt the urge to ask him about Mason, about their conversation, but I held my tongue.

The roof felt comfortingly private. We weren’t hidden, exactly, but we were above everything else, suspended between the house and the endless stretch of night sky above it. The ocean was too far away to see, but every so often the wind carried the faint smell of salt over the trees before disappearing again. All shades had been muted with blue, as if a lonely veil was covering the world.

Since bringing Micah back to Earth, something had strengthened inside of me, as if I finally felt capable for once in my life. I’d actually done something important—even if I still didn’t know exactly how I’d achieved it. We had a second chance, and I did not want to fuck it up this time. It was vital that I did not fuck it up this time.

Carefully, I slid my hand over toward him, pressing my fingers to the backs of his.

Despite the sun slipping away, I could see the cobalt veins meandering below my pale skin—and the faded onyx below Micah’s.

But before I could blink, Micah grabbed my wrist and yanked me fully on top of him as he laid on his back, my legs tangling with his, my knees on the roof. I let out a small yelp of surprise as our chests collided.

“Micah! We’re going to slip off the roof.”

“No, we’re not. I’ve got you.” He adjusted his grip on my back, settling me more securely on top of his body, holding my head down against his shoulder. If I really tried, I could hear his heartbeat all the time, but I could hear it better like this. Pounding steadily against my warm cheek. “What did you think of Heaven?” Micah asked, his head tipped back against the roof shingles, his eyes searching the dimming sky.

“Very red.”

He chuckled quietly. “You would not believe how shocked I was to see the typical depiction humans tend to go with after I fell. I’m not sure where the white clouds and golden gates came from, nor the halos.”

“I don’t know either. I just thought it made sense.” I shifted my position slightly, so I was tucked against his side, my leg still slung over his hips. I tilted my head to look at the stars with him, which seemed so insignificant now, so few. “I guess we could do some research into why, if you want.”

“Fake-Heaven research?”

“Yeah. Just for fun.” I shrugged, then reached awkwardly around to get my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans. Micah didn’t want to have conversations about the hard stuff, and I fully understood that. I was more than content to just spend time with him, even if parts of me would always be nervous about his happiness.

I unlocked my phone, the screen opening up to what I’d been looking at before flying here—my mom’s Facebook. Unfortunately, since learning of its existence on my birthday, I’d been checking it far too often. She didn’t post much, but there were pictures from Anthony’s wedding, random pictures of flowers, some pictures of me during childhood.

The picture I’d been looking at most recently was of my mom holding me when I was a baby. I had tiny pink striped socks on, and for some reason, that detail always made me emotional. I could’ve had my own photo with my own baby wearing her own pink striped socks. Could’ve, and didn’t.

I tried not to think about it often, but it still happened from time to time.