AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He’s running after me. Chasing me.
I knew he would.
Like Orion.
The thought makes me stop and, panting, I turn to face him.
He’s right there, a few feet away.
“You stopped.”
I walk backward. “I didn’t want to run anymore.”
He walks forward, toward me. “Why not?”
Because he is to me what sharp objects are to fragile things. What a flame is to a moth.
Destiny.
We are destiny, Zach and I. We’re stars, aren’t we?
You can’t run from destiny. You can’t outrun fate. You can’t stop a moth from perishing in flames and you can’t stop a sharp object from making a fragile thing bleed.
“Because I don’t want to play games anymore.”
“You think this is a game?”
“No. This isn’t a game.” I keep walking backward, unafraid because if something happens, he’ll lunge forward to save me. “Who am I?”
He frowns, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “My prize.”
My back hits a tree and I arch my spine, wrapping my hands around the trunk. “Then, you should claim me. But you should also know one thing.”
“What thing?”
“This prize belongs to you but you belong to this prize just as much.”
Zach finally reaches me and leans forward to put his palms on the rough bark of the tree. “Yeah?”
I lift my chin. “Yes.”
“You know why I wasn’t eating that freaking custard?”
“Why?”
“Because I was waiting for you. Because I thought like every day, you’d come and we’d…”
“Eat together.”
Finally, I smile.
He moves his hands and buries them in my loose hair, tilting up my neck. “You know what belonging to me means?”
“What?”
His forehead drops to mine. “It means that you’re the only thing in this world that I feel… responsible for.” His frown is so deep that I feel it on my skin. “You’re the first thing that’s ever belonged to me. The very first thing and I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you.”
My heart’s gone. I don’t hear it.
