I’ll dance with her all night if she needs me to.
She brushes me off and shakes her head. I reach for my phone and turn the volume so loud that neither of us can hear our thoughts. And finally, after moving her arms back and forth a couple of times, a full smile slips onto her lips, and she gives in.
So fucking worth it.
I’m sure if anyone were to look out the kitchen window and see us, they would think we were drinking. Because for a solid four minutes, we forget who we’re supposed to be.
We forget the rest of the world exists.
I spin her. We play air guitar on the coffee table, the two of us back-to-back. There’s head banging and laughing and swaying, and the entire time, I can only think that I wish I had done this with her years ago when her heart was breaking. When fresh tears were moving down her cheeks from the arguments and screaming upstairs.
When we jump down from the coffee table, I take her wrists and spin her a few more times until she has to grab my arms to stay balanced. Her laughter rings through the room when I bring her back into me.
She fists my shirt, both of us moving off balance, and I hug her waist so we don’t crash into the couch. Her laughter fades through the last bridge of the song, and for the briefest of moments, I feel her clench me tighter.
My heartbeat is in my ears. I widen my hand at the small of her back, and as I hug her close into a sway, I feel her tremble in my arms.
We’re clinging to the moments neither of us had control over, the moments that we can’t change, the ones that are a part of us now.
It’s four minutes of my life that becomes a core memory. I barely realize my forehead is resting against her temple until I feel her lean into it.
I breathe her in. I feel her pulse in her wrist, and I’m curious what she’s thinking. Her eyes are closed when I look down at her. Her jaw is tight, her body tensing against me like she’s trying to stop herself from breaking.
I brace my hand against her cheek, causing her eyes to open up at me, and the look within them shatters my heart.
God, I want to kiss her.
I think I might die if I don’t.
I want to kiss her and swear she’ll never have to feel that pain again. I want to find every scar she’s ever concealed so she never feels she has to hide a part of herself.
I thread my fingers in her hair’s roots at the nape of her neck and swipe my thumb across her cheekbone, leaning dangerously close to her face. I can feel her staggered breath upon my lips as her gaze darts to my mouth.
“Break, beautiful,” I whisper. “Don’t be afraid of me. I’ll pick up all your pieces.”
Her bottom lip quivers. “I’ve heard too many promises to put me back together again from men who never meant it,” she says. “Because they never do.”
“I don’t mean to put you back together… I mean to hold onto whatever parts of yourself you need me to take, and when they inevitably get mixed up with my own fucked up fragments, we’ll make our own masterpiece with all the pieces that don’t fit anymore.”
There’s a pause where she looks up at me, and I feel myself die a little more.
“Maddox…”
Every bit of restraint I have left within me is on its final edge. I need her to walk away from me because if she doesn’t move within the next thirty seconds, I’m going to resign into absolute insanity.
The tickle of her fingers in my beard makes my eyes flutter.
Walk away from her.
Send her to bed.
She can never be yours.
“You should go to bed, Andi,” I say, though I can’t bring myself to let her go.
I need her to be the one to pull out of my arms.
I need her to be the one to let me go.
