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The water keeps rising, the waves crashing into my back. I finally feel the cold, violent shivers snaking up my spine. I look back at the water. The foamy waves crashing towards me starts to roar. I hold my hands up to stop it, as if I could. As if some effort of sheer will on my end will keep me from drowning.
* * *
“Ellie?”
I open my eyes. Rhylan is crouched down next to me with the car door open. Everything around us is so quiet and still. He leans towards me, brushing my hair out of my face and tucking it gently behind my ear. My eyes are swollen, barely slit open enough for me to see his face.
“We’re here.” His voice is nurturing, so careful and soft, as if I could break any second. And maybe that’s a truth that I keep avoiding. Maybe I’m meant to break, no longer living life as a whole but in crumbled pieces instead, being swept along and leaving behind broken parts of my heart. Either way, a whole person or pieces of one, I feel utterly exhausted.
I look past him and see a house. If that’s what you would call it. It’s large, expanding so far that it seems to blend into the dark sky. The modern home, made of what looks like steel and glass, reflects the moonlight against the flat surfaces.
I sigh, still waking up. “Where are we?”
“My house,” he says softly.
“Right,” I whisper, remembering our conversation on the road.
The tears managed to stop on the drive here, leaving me spent. But the knot in my chest is still there. That feeling of drowning is there too, reminding me that as soon as I feel the rush of air with the possibility that I can actually breathe again, it’s not real. None of it’s real. The only concrete thought I can hold on to is that I don’t want to feel like this anymore.
I try to stand, pulling myself out of the seat. Rhylan helps me, extending his hand and carrying my weight in it. But I still feel weak. My heart feels numb, exhausted from working overtime. The exhaustion has spread into my limbs, making them feel heavy.
Without hesitating, Rhylan bends down and hooks his arm behind my knees, swooping me towards him before standing upright. I wrap my arm around his neck to give me something to hold on to.
“You don’t have to carry me,” I protest.
“I know,” he says. He faces me, our noses almost touching. His mouth forms into a grim line, the creases in his jaw looking sharper in the shadows of the moonlight. He doesn’t say anything else while his eyes remain serious. He steps slowly and carefully up the three short steps that lead up to his front door. I surrender as the exhaustion takes over me, and I bury my face into his neck. I breathe in his scent, my warm breath skirting over his skin, and I feel the goosebumps rising on his skin in the wake of my touch.
He opens his door with ease, using only one hand while the other supports my weight. Once inside, he carries me the rest of the way to his sofa where he lowers me gently and reaches for a throw blanket, laying it over me. I pull it closer to me, bunching the softness towards my face and inhaling the scent of him lingering on the fuzzy fabric.
He tries to sit on the other end, but I pull his arm towards me. I don’t want him to leave my side.
“Stay with me,” I whisper. I scoot over, and he fills the empty spot I made for him without a word.
Maybe it’s the comfort of being wrapped up in Rhylan or the walls that have crumbled down around me, but I sink into him. I mold into the hollow between his chest and his shoulder, drinking him in. I’ve worked hard to keep everything in, like a dam that’s ready to burst. But now that Rhylan coaxed that dam open, everything is splayed out. And it weighs a lot heavier than when I had kept it all inside.
We stay quiet, not speaking but feeling each other. He continues to stroke my arm, which is lazily draped across his stomach, and I listen to his steady breathing. It’s quiet for so long that I almost think he’s fallen asleep. But his movements don’t stop. His hand keeps moving up and down my arm, occasionally finding itself in my hair to carefully brush it out of my face.
“Why do you think we experience heartbreak?” I ask him. My voice sounds loud and awkward after the long stretch of silence between us. Maybe it’s the tightness in my chest or the tears that have finally ceased long enough for me to place some perspective on the situation, but my voice is void of emotion. Completely raw and open to whatever hurt I need to reluctantly swallow.
I finally look up at him, waiting for his answer. “I think it just happens,” he says. “People say it’s a lesson that you have to learn from or some other bullshit, but in reality, shit just happens.”
“I don’t really know what to do to stop hurting,” I say with a wavering voice. My forehead creases, and my throat feels tight again, warning me of the tears starting to prick the corners of my eyes. “I have days where I think I’m okay. I just do what I need to do to get by. But then those days don’t last long. And then I…”
“Drowning will do that to you,” he says. His eyes are dark and full of familiarity, letting me know that he understands. He understands what it feels like to sink with no end with nothing to pull him up, what it feels like to drown.
“Is it selfish to not want to drown anymore?” I ask him, the tears now pooling and threatening to spill. “I don’t care what I have to do or who I end up hurting. I just don’t want to feel like this anymore.” I can’t help the sob that comes from my chest, leaving my lips as a cry for help as the tears start pouring down my cheeks.
He sits up, and I sit up with him. He faces me, his hands on both sides of my face, drawing my attention to him.
“I wish it was as easy as me telling you not to feel this way anymore because if it was, I would tell myself the same thing. But it’s not, and the only thing I can tell you is… I’ll be here. If you ever feel like you can’t go on, like you want to give up, come to me. Let me take on that suffering so you don’t have to do it alone.”
I’ve always known Rhylan Matthews to be this handsome, charming, and definitely sexy man that graced the silver screen with his presence. That isn’t up for debate. It’s the side of him that I’ve always known. But the Rhylan Matthews in front of me right now is different. He presents himself as a protector. Someone that would fend for me, body and soul. He accepts me as I am. Without condition and with full faith that there’s more to me than what’s on the surface.
“Just remember your promise to me,” he whispers.
I nod, knowing what he’s talking about.I don’t think I can ever wake up to a day where I don’t get to hold you in my arms.
I lift my face towards him. The tears that continue to flow now coat my face and moisten my lips. My eyes scan his, and the way he looks at me makes me stop for a single heartbeat. I’ve never had anyone look at me the way Rhylan is looking at me right now. He looks at me with a fire behind his eyes. It’s fierce, and I don’t know how much of it controls his actions. But I’m not scared. Instead, it fuels the erratic beating of my heart, and I can’t help but wonder what would happen if he let that fire decide everything between us.
