Page 196 of These Tears

I press my face into the pillow, as if the cotton can wipe the thought clean, erase the stupid, irrational sting inside me. I remind myself that I was brought here against my will. That he’s playing with me. Tormenting me. Turning my fear into something that feels like want and then watching me hate myself for it. I am the medium to his reckoning with intimacy.

How can I feel jealousy over this at all? How can I feel anything but disdain?

Minutes unroll. The fire crackles.

Eventually, fatigue does what mercy can’t: it takes away the room in pieces. The fire goes last.

I don’t dream.

Many hours later, somewhere beyond the walls, when the wind finally dies down and the house stops groaning beneath its force, the cold begins to nibble up my shoulder too harshly. I stir, eyes dragging open as if the lids are made of lead.

He’s by the stove, sleeping on the floor, wrapped in two blankets.

My heart kicks as if it knows sudden movement might shatter the fragile spell of his peace.

A single curl at the crown of his head catches the dull sheen from the October night beyond the window.

The fire has long since died. The air has cooled, creeping quietly into every corner of the room until warmth is but a quiet negotiation between the body and the blanket.

His naked shoulder is exposed, pale against the dark cover, skin pebbling in the chill.

With a breath held tight in my chest, I ease myself out from under the covers.

Early winter bites instantly through my clothes, finding every gap at my wrist and throat until my teeth threaten to chatter.

Before I lose my nerve, I stand upright and lay one of my warm blankets over him, then tuck the sides in as far as his weight allows.

I can’t do much more. He wouldn’t let me.

My eyes stay on that single curl lying stark against his forehead.

What are you doing? I ask myself in Marina’s voice.

The little clock on the wall wrenches my gaze from him.

It’s nearly four in the morning, the hour he said we’d leave. The hour that belongs to routine and animals and the pretence of survival. Somehow, this morning, I don’t resent either.

I look down at him. If he wakes up with me standing above him like this, he might panic again.

But as I shift one leg, his lungs drag in a deep breath. His brow pinches briefly, and then – without opening his eyes – he rolls onto his back. One arm falls over his eyes, as if even in sleep, he’s shielding himself from the world.

The blankets slip lower with the movement.

I reach down quickly and pull one back over him, careful not to wake him.

My gaze latches on the ink winding along the arm thrown above his face. My eyes shamelessly begin to follow the stretch of the links. Up over the hard curve of his bicep. Across his shoulder. Into the cluster spreading over his chest, where they ripple with every slow rise beneath his ribs.

And then my gaze travels lower, over the ridged planes of his abdomen—

The blanket has settled obscenely low across his hips.

Low enough that the dark curls beneath his stomach peer over the edge. Low enough to reveal the beginning of him before the wool mercifully – or cruelly – hides the rest.

I straighten my back but let my eyes roam. Heat blooms at the base of me. The room disappears and wet tile shimmers into my vision, his thighs straining beneath my hands. The weight of him against my tongue. The way he looked when control finally deserted him – beautiful and severe and unbearably perfect. And he isn’t even aware of it.

My mouth remembers the taste of him before shame can creep higher.

And I refuse to regret it.