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Neri: I hate that there was anyone else. I hate that I’m not there with you. I hate that even if I was, you probably wouldn’t touch me. Put me out of my misery, Aslan. Did you sleep with her?
I swallowed hard, clinging to honesty when all I wanted to do was lie.
Me: I tried.
Neri: What does that mean?
Me: It means, I tried. And I failed.
Neri: Tell me I’m not crazy. Tell me you failed because she wasn’t me. Tell me you don’t feel this. Tell me something, Aslan, because I’m going insane feeling this on my own.
This was the moment.
The last moment to stay safe.
Death cackled in the night, eager and ever watchful.
If I did this, I ran the risk of falling into its murderous embrace.
But I couldn’t not do this.
I couldn’t fight...not anymore. Not in this single moment beneath moonshine and starlight, floating on a sea I despised.
Me: You’re not crazy.
Neri: You feel it too?
Me: Fuck yes, I feel it. I dream of you. I ache for you. I’m so fucking wrapped up in you that it petrifies me because if I had to choose my life or yours...I’d choose you every time.
Neri: Come back and choose me then. We’ll tell my parents and live happily ever after.
Me: Tell them what exactly? That the overstayer they’ve hidden in their garden for four years wants to fuck their daughter?
Neri: Is it wrong that I just got full-body chills? The thought of you doing that to me? The thought of you inside me...
Me: Neri...stop. I can’t go there. I won’t.
Neri: I think of you...when I touch myself. I watched online how to pleasure myself and now, I can’t stop. Every time I do, I imagine you touching me, kissing me, fucking me...
Fuck.
FUCK!
My cock rippled with a release, daring me to stroke just once.
She’d made me hypersensitive. Trigger-line reactive where I’d explode if she sent one more text, filling my mind with her writhing and coming and—
Neri: I only want you. I want you to be my first and my last. I can wait. If you need me to wait for years, I can. I’ll be patient. Just tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. Tell me that you want me the way I want you and I’ll fight every day for you. We can try to get married. The moment I turn eighteen, we can apply for a family citizenship visa for you. You could stay here without any fear. You could stay here...with me...as my husband.
My throbbing desire choked me.
All my need turned into horror.
I could see it so fucking clearly.
See us tangled in sheets and sweat.
See us obsessed and besotted.
See us sneaking around until she turned eighteen and then marching down to the courthouse for a marriage license.
See us being denied.
See a government official knocking on the door.
See them arresting me.
See Neri breaking into sobs as I was deported.
See her breaking into pieces as I died on Turkish soil.
I shot upright, the world swimming, nausea splashing my tongue.
Fucking hell, I wanted to be sick.
I wanted to snarl and tear apart The Fluke because as much as I wanted to pretend love could conquer all, it never worked out that way.
Neri had just shown me the depth of her heart, teased me with hope of claiming that heart, and proved just how fucked I was because I’d already given her my heart in return.
She was it for me.
I no longer cared if it was a curse from being saved by her or some sort of twisted fate.
No one else would do.
No one else would ever compare.
It didn’t matter that we’d found each other so young.
It didn’t matter our circumstances or complications.
All it would take was a single message.
A single word: YES.
A thousand times yes.
A thousand fucking times to the life and love she offered me.
But...I couldn’t.
Because if I did?
If I agreed to her crazy plan and finally claimed her as mine, then I would lose her the moment the courts refused me asylum and the government got involved.
It wasn’t just my refugee status.
It wasn’t about betraying Jack and Anna.
It was the secret I hid even from myself.
The deep, dark truth of who I was, what I was running from, and just how far death would go to snatch me.
Eventually, it would catch me and the loss and grief I lived and breathed would land heavily on Neri’s shoulders. She would feel that pain. She would live that loss. She would watch me die and leave her with nothing.
I’d break her.
Shatter her.
By loving her, I’d steal everything that made her Neri, and...I can’t.
I would rather exist in heartbreak and watch her find happiness with another man than ever put her through that.
I crashed from aching lust to inconsolable love, and I gasped at the mistake I’d made.
