AllFreeNovel
Share Us
MARLEY
Iknew the moment we had both fucked up.
It wasn’t when we finally gave into the desires that we’ve had for so long. It wasn’t while I was coming apart at the feel of his mouth on my body. It wasn’t when he pushed himself inside of me and left an imprint in my soul. No, it wasn’t any of that.
It was in the moments after. When I curled up next to him. When I let him run his fingers through my hair. When I felt the fucking sting of love blooming in my chest. It was in the small talk after those moments.
It was the moment I realized we had both fallen in love. We’d fallen in love with each other after everything. And we had fucked up.
“What does this one mean?” His gravelly voice pulls me from my panic, erasing my thoughts.
His fingers are grazing over the tattoo on my back.
“One afternoon, me and some of the girls from school were at this farmers market. It was a beautiful day. It had been raining for like five days before, and it was the first perfect day we’d had in a while. I was walking through the stands and there was this woman with a stand full of the most beautiful flowers I’d ever seen. These purplish pink roses stood out to me for some reason, and she told me that they were her daughter, Mallory’s, favorite flower. It felt like fate, like I was meant to find that stand, on that day, and those flowers. I went back every weekend and bought every single bouquet she had. We talked every time, until the last visit I had, and it was her daughter in her place. The woman had died, and this would be the last time the stand was going to be there. I felt like I had to do something for her and for Mallory, both Mallory’s,” I say, wiping a tear from my eye.
He stares down at me, before leaning down to capture my lips with his.
“That’s beautiful, beauty,” he says.
Feeling uncomfortable with how personal the conversation is turning, I run my hands over his stomach, stopping over a skull tattoo, almost exactly the same color as the roses on my back.
“Is there a story behind this?” I ask, changing the direction from me to him.
“The skull is for me, because I always feel like I’m one step away from death. The color is for my mom. It’s her favorite.”
I don’t ask him to elaborate, because he seems lost in thought, but I wonder if he notices the connection to the colors. It feels like fate, and I know that sounds fucking stupid.
“Are you still coming home for Christmas?” he asks.
“Yeah… should I not?” I ask, sitting up to look at him.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” he says, looking away from me.
“That’s funny, because you were just telling me what to do like an hour ago,” I sass.
“Marley,” he says sternly.
“No, you’re not going to do this. You’re not going to come storming into my house, fuck me, and then try and sabotage it. Get out,” I tell him, getting up from the bed, scrambling around to find his shit and throw it at him.
“Marley, quit,” he says, getting up from the bed.
“Get the fuck out, Clark. It was just a fuck. Right?” I bite.
He looks like I just slapped him. I wish I fucking would have.
“Right,” he says, throwing his jeans on before leaving the room.
I stand in the middle of my bedroom, arms wrapped around my body, and tears falling. I flinch when the door slams.
How do two people go from what just happened between us to screaming only minutes later?
I slink down to the floor, my back against my bed, tears falling from my eyes. I know it was the right thing to do, because there isn’t a happily ever after in our future. We both know that. We just let the inevitable happen tonight and now it’s over.
If that’s the case, then why was everything he said right? Why can I still feel him in my bones, in my soul? Will I always?
* * *
“Remind me why we came back here?” Delaney asks, laughing.
