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This won’t last. You’ll corrupt him with the evil inside you.
The cold, ugly, taunting voice wasn’t unfamiliar. It had whispered to me since I died in that warehouse.
But for once, I didn’t listen to it.
I let myself enjoy the road trip.
As much as I could enjoy it, at least.
The nightmares were still there. But so was Colby when I jolted awake, covered in sweat. He didn’t pry about them. He held me tight, kissed my head and didn’t protest when I climbed on top of him, desperate to feel alive, to feel warm and full again.
Food was still difficult. But not as difficult since I found out that Colby was an avid foodie, and he scouted out top notch restaurants, diners and cafes in every small town we stopped in.
Ditto with the towns and our accommodations.
He’d not only mapped out the entire trip, but he’d structured it so that every town we stayed in was charming and beautiful. Gone were the cheap and dirty motels I’d called home. In their place were boutique hotels, inns and standalone cottages. All of them were tasteful, luxurious and reminded me of the things I used to like.
Colby didn’t let me pay for a single thing. I argued, of course. We argued a lot. The trip wasn’t sunshine, flowers and rainbows. Though I might not have been operating at full power, I still had some sass left in me. And though Colby was treating me with care, I still pissed him off plenty.
The difference now was … make up sex. With plenty of spanking.
I didn’t look too closely at my need for him to dominate me during sex. To hurt me. I was sure I’d dissect that with a therapist in many years. Colby didn’t shy away from doing it either, especially since he saw how much I got off on it.
We were both feeding something that had been born that day at the warehouse, for better or for worse.
It took us over two weeks to cross the country. They were the best two weeks I’d had in years. Even before the warehouse.
Colby and I had never spent that kind of time together. I learned intimate things about him. Like how he had to run first thing in the morning. Or—something I discovered on the second day—have vigorous morning sex. Despite how he’d teased me at the café for ordering all sorts of different coffee drinks, he only drank double shot espressos. He took quick showers.
He read every night before bed. And wore reading glasses. Him, with his shirt off, his dragon tattoo, his muscles, his hair pulled into a bun and fucking reading glasses… You could’ve put that shit on a calendar.
After I jumped him the first night I saw him like that, the next day I led us to a bookstore. Even though I’d been overloaded with shit to read for classes when I was at school, I’d still liked to read for pleasure.
Violet liked steamy books about fairies, and I enjoyed them too, but my lane veered more toward the Stephen King vibe.
Again, with most of the things I’d loved, it was born out of rebellion. Stephen King wrote about monsters, demons and magic. I hadn’t even been allowed to read fucking Harry Potter. My parents were all about censorship. So I, of course, had made a hobby of reading banned books.
Though I ached to escape into different words these past years, every time I’d picked up a book, the words on the page had merged together to form a big black hole.
When I tried it in the bathtub of our hotel, with bubbles surrounding me, a candle burning, a glass of whisky beside me, knowing Colby was in the next room, I managed a bunch of chapters until the bathwater turned cold.
I’d called that a win.
Sure, I had some losses too. I still couldn’t be fully naked in front of Colby. I froze when he even accidentally brushed my mid-section. I was still leaning on booze too much. There were many parts of the day where my skin felt filthy, my body felt like a corpse.
Ollie kept in regular touch. As did Violet, and there were many photos of Willow which burned my throat, fertilizing the guilt that was growing inside of me.
The closer we got to Utah, the tenser I got.
Though I would say, it was hard to be too tense when I spent a large portion of the day pressed against Colby’s back, speeding down the highways, watching the burnt amber landscape pass by. Having put all my energy into hating the environment in which I grew up, I’d been blinded to just how lovely it was.
My fingers curled tighter around Colby’s midsection as we drove through the town I grew up in.
One of his hands released to cover mine, squeezing it in reassurance.
