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“Two more weeks,” she replies. “Gotta be on the stupid pill a month.”
“Bummer,” I say. “Let’s eat and then we can play.”
She waggles her eyebrows. “It’s a date.”
We don’t finish eating, barely a slice each. The electricity crackling between us when we’re in the same room is too much. We’re like magnets, cosmically pulled to one another and unable to keep our hands off each other. Just seeing the way that pizza guy looked at her made my knuckles itch.
I drag her to the bedroom, and we proceed to spend two hours “playing” until we’re both exhausted. I barely have the energy to get up and put the food away before slogging back to bed to hold my girl in my arms.
She’s already asleep by the time I get back in bed and doesn’t stir when I slip between the sheets and gather her in my arms. She breathes evenly, and her black hair is splayed out on my chest where I’d pulled it out of its complicated ponytail earlier. I love it when she wears her hair down, it just makes her look all that more pretty and exotic.
I play with it between my fingers as I watch her sleep. She looks so peaceful and content, and I’d give anything to sleep that soundly. My nightmares have awoken her before, which are always embarrassing and upsetting. I wish I could make them stop. Anne says they should dissipate over time but I’m not so sure about that. I do admit to sleeping better when Christa’s here. She keeps the horrors out of my head, for the most part, and I find the only nightmares I have when she’s here are ones about monsters—human ones and supernatural ones—coming to get her. It upsets me in my dream because they should be coming for me, not her. She’s perfect and good and I’m the monster who deserves to be tortured. I try to distract them, to get them to chase me so I can lure them away, but they are always after her, and something in my dream stops me from saving her. It’s the worst, most helpless feeling in the world, and I’m always startled awake when the monsters get to her.
I softly kiss the top of her head and rub circles on her tattooed shoulder, tired but not sleepy enough yet. Being alone in my thoughts is not a good thing, but I’m learning to cope with them. I remember my nightmares and wonder what I would do if someone came after Christa for any reason. I would probably tear everything apart and get myself locked up again to keep her safe. I have no reason except my own irrational insecurities that anyone or anything would want to hurt her. She’s just a paralegal from a good, loving family who completes me. She really should be more discerning with men, but I’m selfishly happy she’s chosen me, when I don’t deserve any part of her love.
I hope one day I’ll feel worthy of it, because now I don’t. I’ll just greedily take what she gives me and hope that I can reciprocate the love and tenderness she shows me. Otherwise, it’ll be a cold day in hell before I let anyone else touch her because she’s fucking mine.
Five
Christa
Waking up in his armsis the best feeling ever, and I stare up at him, loving how peaceful he looks when he sleeps.
“Good morning,” he murmurs after his eyelashes flutter open.
“Did you feel me watching you?” I ask.
“I’m used to it,” he replies.
At first, I’m confused by this, but then I realize what he means. “Care to talk about it?”
“Nope,” he replies.
I rub circles on his chest with my red-painted nail, and lift my gaze to his. “You know you can share anything with me. I won’t judge.”
“I just want to put that part of my life behind me. What I did... my time locked up... I wish I could just forget about it all. Prison stories aren’t as exciting as you think they are.”
