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He presses his lips together, and takes a moment to answer. “I mean, yeah, I guess,” he finally says, reaching over and tucking a strand of loose hair behind my ear, his hand then falling to my arm, his thumb caressing my skin distractedly. “I just didn’t know what else to do. I thought that maybe it would help you remember. Well, maybe not remember like me but help somehow?”
I scoff in disbelief. “Yeah, maybe it worked a little too well.” I fall silent, chewing the inside of my cheek. “Why would you buy this cottage? That’s pretty morbid—even for me,” I say, a small grin pulling at my lips.
Byzantine laughs but then falls sullen. “It was the only connection I had to us, before…I found you again.”
“Did we ever have a life where we were just, I don’t know, happy?”
He shrugs. “Maybe? But those aren’t the ones I saw or remembered.” His eyes peer up at the ceiling as if mulling it over. “Maybe those weren’t the ones important to what feels unresolved between us.”
I can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt. Of him stuck remembering all these other lives where I’ve died tragically, usually by my own hand or close. As if it’s my fault we’re here. My fault we’re stuck in this vicious karmic loop.
But Byzantine manages to pull my thoughts right out of my head. “I’m as much to blame you know. I wasn’t perfect either, I hurt you as much as you hurt me.”
“I know,” I say as I let his words sit beside my guilt. “Just feels very on the nose for me to, yet again, have these same thoughts. I’m so predictable…” I let out a sad laugh. Me wanting to die isn't even original. Very basic of me.
“We just need to make better choices this time,” he says, leaning for a quick kiss. “All I want to do now is support you. And be there for you, how I couldn’t be there for you before. You already know how I feel about you Sunny, but if you need me to, I will remind you every second of every day.”
He kisses me again, this time lazy and unhurried, showing me exactly how he feels, not just with words but with his actions, his mouth promising me all the things I’m still too scared to hear.
The right words stay locked inside of me, connected to the shame of still yearning for the feeling of not being alive—of still yearning for my sister's presence. Even if he deserves for me to profess my love…I’m not even close.
So I let my own lips trace a path to his heart hoping he understands what it feels like to live when all I’ve ever wanted until now was to die.
My eyes snag on the blue windflower on his chest. My fingers trailing over it again. Byzantine looks down as I gently press on the tattoo over his heart.
“Tell me,” I say, gazing inquisitively into his eyes. The same sadness I’ve found before swimming in his jade irises. “Tell me why you called me windflower.”
He wraps his hand over mine, holding our clasped hands against his chest. I can feel the wild beat of his heart, and the sadness pouring out of him, the intensity overwhelming.
“It was your favorite flower when you were Gabriel.”
His words are still so strange to hear.
When I was someone else.
But his words somehow ring true. Then, in a hushed almost reverent tone, he recounts the story of the book I once gave to him. And how he wasn’t able to tell me how much he loved me then. How a part of him was ashamed of our secret relationship and how his actions slowly poisoned us—especially me. How it eventually led me to that very cliff.
“I never forgave myself,” he whispers, his eyes glassy like he’s struggling against the emotions he’s releasing between us.
Forgive me.
The words Byzantine whispered in my tousled hair the first time we kissed.
How it felt so much more than just forgiveness but repentance. His remorse thick in the air from all the lives spent together. Before us now.
Could it be?
That a subconscious part of myself remembers all the times he failed to love me like he promised? And all the times I promised to embrace life and then didn’t?
Could that be what’s holding me back?
Chapter 48
Byzantine
Alongwavystrandof Sunny’s hair whips in her face, her cheeks rosy from the wind, eyes bright like the sun. The waves crash below as we sit snug on a blanket, a picnic basket resting close to the large rock beside us. There was no changing her mind this afternoon when she demanded we have lunch on the cliff.
The very cliff I watched her die from. The one where it feels like I nearly lost her again.
