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I’d grown used to his unconscious outbursts.
My veins had bled dry on multiple occasions when his nightmares caused him to scream my name and not his dead sister’s.
In his sleep, he showed me the depth of how much he loved me and how much that love destroyed him. His dream-terrors revealed how tragically entwined we were, and I hated that we weren’t playing a game when we said our hearts beat as one.
It was undeniably true.
When his hurt, mine hurt.
When his thundered, mine galloped.
When his stopped, mine never restarted.
Oh God...
I wasn’t ready.
I’m not ready...
Goosebumps scattered down my entire body.
My chest collapsed in on itself.
My bones throbbed with tears I’d swallowed back, year after year, slowly filling up my body with a salt of my own making until I fermented in sadness.
I-I don’t think I can do this.
My hands trembled, spilling my coffee all over my soft pink blanket.
“Hey. Nerida. Hey, it’s okay.” Dylan leapt to his feet and plucked the cup from my trembling fingers. Placing it on the mango wood coffee table between us, he inched around it and sat beside me. We sat in my favourite place in this house—surrounded by glass and scrolled metal work of the huge conservatory. A seahorse fountain babbled in the corner and lush tropical plants seasoned the air with sweet blossoms. This room was a paradise, yet it seemed like an absolute travesty as I struggled with what came next. What Aslan was about to endure. What I was about to endure. What had ultimately destroyed us.
I hunched and did my best to gather my strength, but a keening noise escaped me.
Dylan sucked in a worried gasp. He hesitated a moment before wrapping his arm around my fragile shoulders. “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
My temper flared, igniting my sadness like a steaming cauldron. I finally understood why sixteen-year-old Aslan had hated that word when he’d first been found.
It was an empty word.
A word that promised nothing and had the power to grate on your nerves and make a mockery of everything you hoped for.
Sitting taller, I did my best to collect myself.
I thought I could do this.
I thought I’d been prepared to do this.
When I’d started sharing my love story, I’d promised myself that by the time we got to this part, I wouldn’t shed a tear. I would stay cool and collected. It was in the past, after all. It’d already happened. It couldn’t hurt me now.
And yet...
I’d never felt older.
Never been more breakable.
Never craved the sweet oblivion of death more than I did in that moment of confession.
You can’t stop now.
