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But then, like a bright flame flickering through all this darkness—I wake up. I slam back into my body. My lungs fill up with air as if I’m taking the first full breath after being dragged underwater.
I am no longer weightless. No longer so desperate. The fog dissipates, and I’m left just standing here, in Byzantine’s dark bathroom, staring at the razor in my clammy hand. Realizing for the first time tonight the full weight of what I was about to do—and how much I would have ultimately regretted it.
It doesn’t prevent the shame from rapidly engulfing me, so thick and heavy I can no longer bear the sight of what I’m holding and promptly chuck it in the garbage.
I slide onto the floor next to the glass shower, a sob piercing the heavy silence of the bathroom.
What the fuck just happened?
The more I regain full consciousness, the more it feels like whateverthiswas felt closer to possession than an obsession. Like my past self somehow slithered under my skin and took over.
The one who needed to bleed to feel alive.
My cries get even louder as I give in to this feeling, my knees tucked up into my chest, holding them with my shaking arms.
I barely register Byzantine finding me and settling beside me. He says nothing, his steady presence is a balm to my aching heart and I let my head fall on his shoulder while the tears continue to fall.
He presses a soft kiss to my forehead and I can’t help but feel guilty. Like I’m a constant burden for those who love me. I say nothing, crying beside Byzantine as he just sits with me in silence, not questioning, not trying to fix this, just here—present—and slowly I start to calm down.
“Please don’t give up on me,” I finally whisper into the dark and he grows still beside me.
At first I think he won’t say anything back, but then he pulls me into his lap and I crawl onto him like I'm on the edge of a precipice, terrified of falling.
“Oh my little sun,” his voice is hoarse when he finally speaks like some unnamed emotion is clogging up his vocal cords. “I could never.”
My arms wrap around his neck, my face burying into him, breathing in his sleep warm scent. I can’t seem to stop the tears, the guilt slowly replaced with relief with the sound of his words.
“I love you,” he reminds me and I gasp on a sob, the feelings so acute inside of me that I can’t control my reactions. Instead, I stay wrapped around him on the bathroom floor for the next hour until I slowly calm myself down. Only then does he carry me to bed, my eyes drooping with sleep when he pulls the duvet over my body.
And maybe if I wasn’t so emotionally exhausted, I would recognise that this is what it feels like to be safe.
Chapter 52
Byzantine
Theafternoonsunisbeating down on the windshield while I sit in my idling car outside of Sunny’s building complex waiting for her to come out. My mind can’t help but to drift while I wait, thinking about everything that has happened between her and I in the past few months since we met.
It’s been over a week since I found her crying on my bathroom floor, and although I can’t say seeing her like that didn’t scare me, I’ve also felt a small shift in her since. Maybe it’s nothing major but it still gives me hope. That somehow we’re heading in the right direction together.
The memories of our past lives together are fading. Not enough to forget but enough to begin replacing those haunted memories with better ones. New ones where both our demise is not stitched into the fucking fabric of time. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re finally doing better but I’m not going to question it. Holding on to all those memories was exhausting.
All I want now is to remember what’s in front of me. I want to learn every curve on Sunny’s body, every inch of her mind. Hell, I’d tag along in her dreams while she sleeps if she'd let me. Still, the urge to cast a net over her and keep her protected from herself claws at me. But I know I can’t crush her like that, she’ll fight me every step of the way. And it won’t help anything anyway.
She needs the time to heal.
So I continue to do what I’ve promised her. I remind her that I’m not going anywhere and speak the words she’s so terrified of telling me and I act as if it doesn’t bother me when she doesn’t say it back.
Of course it bothers me. But I’ll take this over her disappearing from existence, whether it be mentally or physically. I’ll take her charged silence if it means I can have her here—with me.
Does it make me love her any less? Fucking never. She’s asked for time and that’s what I’m giving her. Even if the memories have faded, I still remember all those centuries waiting, no,wantingwhat I have with Sunny right now. I can give her time, all I have is fucking time for her.
And besides, her body speaks louder than her words ever could. The softness in her gaze when she looks at me. Her fingers fluttering over my skin whenever she’s close. Her small thank yous for nothing at all.
We are beyond words her and I. Speaking hasn’t really been our speciality anyway has it? I crave her every single fucking day and I will continue to crave her until the very moment I die.
Not even death can keep us apart. We’ve already proven that. I’ll always find her. And maybe next time, this love we ignite between us won’t need to be forged through pain. Maybe next time, we’ll just find each other and somehow know.
I watch her, then, bound out of the building, heading towards the car as she beams at me and I grin back.
