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He was standing very close to me. His hair was damp with spray. His face was open, and young, and raw.
“I came here in a bad winter,” he said. “Eighty years ago. I had been walking for many days. I had killed no one, but I had wanted to, and I did not trust myself near a town.” He looked at the falls. “I found this place, and I sat on that rock, and I stayed here for three weeks. I did not eat. I listened to the water. And I thought: if I am ever given someone, I will bring them here. “
My throat closed.
“I did not believe it would happen,” he said. “I thought it was a foolish thing. A story I told myself, to get through the dark.”
“Maksim—”
“Let me finish.”
He turned to face me. He took both my hands. The spray beaded on his lashes and ran down his cheeks like tears, though I don’t think, for once, it was only spray.
“I brought you here,” he said, “because I wanted you to see this. And because I want to make you a promise. Here. In this place. And I want you to make one to me.”
“Okay.”
“Lex.”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to be my one and only.” His voice was steady. It cost him. I could feel it cost him. “In this life, it will be you. Only you. You are my world. Without you, I am nothing. A shadow. A cold room. With you, I am a man.” He swallowed. “I promise that I will love you for eternity. I promise I will never hurt you. I promise I will never break your heart.”
I was crying. I didn’t try to stop. The tears ran down my face and into my collar, and I stood there in the roar of the falls with my hands in his, and I could not speak.
“Now you,” said Maksim, gently. “Only if you wish. I do not ask it. I do not need it. But I would like to hear you say that you will not leave.”
“I won’t.”
“You will not betray me.”
“Never.”
“You will always come home.”
“Always. Every time. Even if I’m mad. Even if I say fuck you in a text.” I laughed, and it broke. “Especially then.”
He gave a low, shaken laugh. He drew me in. I put my face in his neck and held on, and we stood there on the edge of the world with the water thundering beside us, and I said it into his skin.
“I’m always scared you’ll leave me.”
“I know.”
“I’m always scared I’ll wake up and you’ll have gone.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t go away.”
“I know. It does not go away for me either.” His arms tightened. “But we shall be scared together. That is the whole of the difference.”
I pulled back. I looked at him. I put my hands on his face, on the cold beautiful bones of it, the mouth I’d kissed a hundred thousand times.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you.”
“I love you so much I can’t see.”
